


Shadowy Fields of Autumn

by Orlha



Series: Sakura blossoms in April's showers [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Character Development, Depression, Developing Relationship, Families of Choice, Gen, Happy Ending, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hatake Kakashi-centric, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Protective Hatake Kakashi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21667969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: It's one thing to be on a mission with Sensei as her safety net. When things go wrong on a seperate assignment, Sakura have to face her greatest fears and hope she can learn to swim faster than they can sink her.Meanwhile Kakashi realises that he's been trying to make up his incompetence by devoting his time training Sakura and he's never really forgiven himself.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Badassery, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura & Nara Shikamaru, Haruno Sakura & Shiranui Genma, Hatake Kakashi & Namiashi Raidou, Hatake Kakashi & Yamato | Tenzou
Series: Sakura blossoms in April's showers [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1260014
Comments: 218
Kudos: 1136
Collections: Strong BAMF Sakura





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome back all my lovely readers to the sequel of heartbreaks. In this sequel, I can promise these few things will appear:  
> \- Character development in a different way that Sakura & Kakashi had developed in part 1.  
> \- Developing relationships between people and what not  
> Also this is part 2, and if you're just joining us, I recommend starting from Early Summer Rain.

* * *

She is warm. She hears a strange sound, a sound that she could only describe as air bubbling through water.

_Water?_

What water?

She gasps. Water fills her throat and nostrils. Her limbs flounder, splashing frantically. There is a long keening sound somewhere, mixed with different voices screaming or talking loudly. She can't tell the difference.

Everything is a haze.

Hard things grab her and pull her out of the water. Everything still is a garble.

She thrashes, reaching for her throat and eyes. The thing that pulled her out talks to her in a deep voice sounding vaguely familiar, holding her hands down. She is pressed against the thing, his chest vibrates, seemingly murmuring the same words over and over again.

It takes her a few moments, or maybe hours. Time is hazy at best, especially when her eyes are not cooperating.

"You're okay, Sakura-chan," are the words when she finally registers it.

"Gen?" Her throat hurts when she forces those words out.

She was protecting something. What it is, she can’t really remember. She remembers being dragged out of her warm bedroll, the dark night above then nothing.

Sakura coughs, trying to get the water out of her lungs. She coughs until a metallic taste fills her mouth and still nothing comes out. 

"You're okay, Sakura-chan," the voice repeats again. He’s warm, the weight of his arms around her comforts her. She knows this person. 

Hands reaching up to where the face might be, he grabs her hands and puts them on his face. “It’s Raidou,” the voice says. “Oh sage, we thought we lost you too.”

She feels the familiar puckered skin across his nose, her limbs tremble as she takes a long whiff of his vest. It’s him. Her nose and touch tells her that, she _should_ be able to trust it.

But she can’t. She hears Inner at the back of her head whispering ‘ _liar!’_

She wants to know. Raidou is safety and familial love. He’s the uncle that she could always count on.

What happened, what happened, what happened?

‘Tell me! Someone tell me something!’ she wants to scream even as ‘Raidou’ passes her to another set of warm arms and yet another familiar smell. 

She doesn’t.

“Where’s Genma?” she asks instead.

“Oh Sakura-chan,” the warm arms murmurs. Likely ‘Yamato’, she deduces. “I’m so sorry. Genma’s gone.”

‘No! That’s a lie,’ Sakura wants to scream. She can’t, she wouldn’t.

Whatever that happened, Genma needs her to be strong now.

Genma’s not dead.

He _can’t_ be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still floating about this mess on moving across the ocean, visa applications and job! So my updates aren't going to be quick! Bi-monthly or something... let's see if the muse cooperates. 
> 
> Beta-ed by the wonderful [Corryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokoronokingu), nothing ever gets done without her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't understand the 1st chp, that's normal. It was designed like that :) SO here's the 2nd chp extra quick.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Bet Sensei is going to blow a mountain when he finds out that you and this other shinobi are going on the mission but not him,” Sakura says to Genma. 

Having trained a year under Sensei and his friends, she knows better to doubt their interactions. Whatever mission they were going onto, it seemed less important than the actual journey of completing it. There are only two kinds of missions that would have that unspoken requirement: mental evaluation and field evaluation. 

He smiles back, managing to ruffle her hair before she ducks away with a pout. “ _Oh,_ he would. But he would stop right after he finds out why.”

“Oh, keep your secrets,” she huffed at him. Opening the door, she kicks her shoes off. “It’s not like I can’t guess anyway.”

“I’m home!” she calls out.

“We’re home!” Genma merrily echoes, swinging the door close with a lazy tap of heel. 

“Back with Genma again, I see.” Sensei lazily waves at her from the kitchen. “One of these days, you’re going to start paying rent.”

“One of these days, you’re going to stop skipping out on bills at the restaurants,” Genma mocks back and snatches an onigiri from Sensei’s plate. 

“Hey!”

 _“Mine._ From all the times you skipped out on bills!”

She empties her pouch and pulls a fresh cache from under the sink, picking out bad kunai from her pouch. “We got a mission! Just north of Konoha.”

“Just below frost, is what she means.” Genma adds oil and rations to her growing pile and smirks at Sensei, “and _you’re_ not welcomed.”

Sakura scuttles to her room to grab her go pack, exchanging the desert mask for a winter mask. No longer requiring any additional winter gear that she had first starting out needing. Her perfect control allows her to maintain a heat circulation without wasting chakra. How far she’s improved. 

She grips her tanto. She’s better now, but as compared to her year mates, she’s still so far behind. Ino is practically running a whole department by herself in the hospital and Shikamaru is already a chuunin for the whole year plus that she’s been trailing behind.

She shakes herself out of her reverie. It’s bad to keep comparing herself to other shinobi, _especially_ clan ones. She’ll never be as good as them and the sooner she accepts that, the easier it would be on her.

She slides the tanto through its hoops at the base of her pack and slings the pack on. 

If it’s mental evaluation, she’ll be fucked either way. If it’s field evaluation, as long as she follows Sensei’s protocols, she’ll be fine.

“Genma, I’m ready!” 

She steps down the hallway, skirting around the dogs as she jiggles her tanto and pouches, testing her straps and knots. Sensei’s annoyed face morphs into a hesitant smile when he sees her.

“Se— Sensei?”

“Don’t forget Sakura-chan, sometimes the journey is more important than the results.” 

She smiles nervously at him. “Evaluation, right?”

She lets Sensei ruffle her hair. It’s the closest thing to their awkward hugs and she loves it even if he sometimes does it to mess her hair. “Yea,” he says.

“You and I both know she’ll ace this.” Genma nudges him with an elbow. “And if things fuck up, I’m a sealing specialist. I carry an _arsenal_ around.”

“Hopefully it carries your brains too,” Sensei says, and Sakura takes the cue to start walking to the northern gates. 

“ _One_ time, Kakashi. It was just _one_ time.”

“What about the juggling senbon with tongue time.”

“Okay. _Two._ ”

“And the time you laced your kunai with a paralyzing agent, except it was a decomposing agent instead?”

“ _Orrr_ that time you juggled with shurikens that didn’t belong to you? Except _surprise!_ It was another poison specialist’s?” a dark haired kunoichi pops up beside them. 

“There are plenty of other times that I didn’t do that,” Genma mumbles.

“All of which we breathe with great relief that you brought your brains,” Sensei says. 

Sakura laughs. “I only did a few missions with you Genma-san and even _I_ can see a pattern.”

“Hey now!” Genma starts and is pushed aside by the dark haired kunoichi who stretches over to pinch Sakura’s cheeks.

“Hi, I’m Kohaku Kou!” she says. “People like to call me Koko! So you can do that too! I’ll be joining you two for the mission.”

She slaps Genma hard on the back. “If you are ready, we shall venture out!”

Sakura turns, taking a good look at the village. The lunch crowd is just starting up. Touters are hollering their wares in din; at the far end of the long street, there’s a rumble of children laughing as the civilian academy lets out.

Sensei stands awkwardly at the gates, hands in his pocket. As his heir, she hasn’t done many missions without his supervision. Enough that she only needs one hand to count them.

Sakura is a genin. If she fails this evaluation, there’s not much they can demote her to. If she fails this evaluation, then… then— Sensei claps a hand on her shoulder, his eye crinkling in that distinct manner that Sakura knows he’s both assured yet nervous. 

“Don’t worry,” he tells her. “You’ll be fine.”

She gives him a smile that she knows it’s wobblier that she wanted it to be. “I’ll see you in a month.”

✥.✥.✥

Kohaku leads a hard pace through the trees and into the evening until they reach the Central Northern Outpost just as the sun sets.

In spite of people’s beliefs, Fire country is impossible cross in a day even at shinobi speed. Not even in a week, unless the shinobi’s name is Namikaze Minato or Senju Tobirama that is. There are some speculation whether Namikaze Minato and Senju Tobirama could in fact cross the Fire country in a week, the Jutsu labs calculated based on their chakra stores and the chakra cost for both chakra speed and seals it would pitch them just above a week. The Funijutsu labs disagree. 

Sakura just thinks that the math can’t be wrong and the personal story of Namikaze Minato carrying Sensei and Rin across the Grass country and Fire country indicated that Namikaze Minato could and has done it. 

Like the other Central Outposts she had been to, the Central Northern Outpost is large and bustling, almost like a mini-town with their small range of civilian shops and bars. The gates are nowhere as tall as Konoha’s, but they feel heavy with chakra intent and considering that CNP is set near Sound country and Cloud country, Sakura’s not surprised that the gates are regularly maintained with aggressive fuinjutsu and chakra traps. 

On her missions with Sensei, Sensei always preferred the Central Western Outpost and Suna. He says that the cold is bad for his old bones, Raidou says bad memories. 

Now that she has seen CNP for the first time, she thinks it’s really because the Harunos have a fairly large branch here. No village no matter how small can survive without their civilians and as the largest civilian clan supplying one of the most essential supplies besides metal, it would make sense for their goods to stop here in-between towns.

Sakura fingers her Hatake mask, glad not for the first time that the Hatake had taken into their fold. While she didn’t care for being in a clan, nothing smacks the sneer off the Harunos faces when they see the Hatake mon proudly displayed on her back.

“Ahh the good old Harunos!” Kohaku says. She slides her arm across Sakura’s shoulders, steering them to a grubby looking diner that apparently only serves one kind of food. 

Not much different from the diners in Central Western Outpost, Sakura muses. 

Flagging a waiter, Kohaku order meals for all of them before turning back. “Don’t suppose you heard of the latest scandal?”

“Scandal?” asks Genma as he squeezes into the tiny booth opposite them.

“OH yes!” Kohaku leans forward, her voice dropping in volume. “They were found guilty of bribery and embezzlement. The Tachibanas got them _real_ good.” She pauses as the waiter sets their plates of cutlets down and refills their green tea. 

Kohaku breaks open her chopsticks heaving a mouthful of rice and takes a large bite of the tonkatsu. “Heard that the Harunos would be also losing the exclusivity of the rice distribution. There’s lots of investigation going on at the inner palace.”

The Harunos losing their exclusivity would be a hard hit. A hit that they might not recover from.

Sakura doesn’t taste any of her dinner, she barely registers Genma herding her to one of the temporary bunks and she wakes the next day, it’s hours into their long run to the Hot Water’s borders that she whispers to Genma, “am I bad for being happy that they might not recover?”

“No. _Never,”_ he replies back in a tone so fierce that it startles her. “The bitch finally got what she deserved.”

“But the others—”

“Doing nothing when abuse is happening is just the same as abusing.”

“But—” She swallows thickly, words that she could never say in front of Sensei burns on her mouth. “It’s not abuse if their anger is valid.”

Genma is silent for a moment. Sakura could see the veins on his neck coiled and tense even from her view from his side as they leap across the tree branches.

He leaps across and in front of her, grabbing her by the shoulders, fingers pressing into her flesh. Sakura thinks for a brief moment that he would hit her.

Papa looked like that sometimes when she spoke up.

“Never— ” His adam apple bobs up and down as he struggles for words. “Abuse is never. Never. _Never,_ valid. Not when you’re old and grey, not when you’re the prime of your life as a shinobi and definitely not when you’re a kid. _Never._ ”

He loosens his hands and curses. “And for that matter, what they did to you was abuse no matter what the reason is or how pretty they wrapped it. Understand?” Genma says.

She scrubs the tears from her eyes. “I understand.”

“This is great and all, but can we get going?” Kohaku asks from a few trees away. “I’m slightly _allergic_ to emotions you know. Gives me a bad case of hives.”

“Shut up Koko,” Genma yells back. 

Kohaku leaps off her branch, continuing their route and still calling back. “Look at my arm! Hives!”

✥.✥.✥

Their trip to the nearby merchant city is remarkably uninteresting after that. They pick up the merchant caravan that they’re supposed to escort to the Frost’s border. Kohaku and Genma bicker endlessly, interrupted by border patrol who checks their passcodes and identification. The checks become more frequent as they reach closer to the border just like the outposts become smaller and more camouflage as they near the border city of Minakawa.

Sakura wonders if evaluation should be this easy. Kohaku had made her lead after getting their clients, made her run point and perimeter. It’s nothing that Sensei hadn’t drilled into her and with Okiku doing the bulk of the sensory, nothing not even the academy-dropout bandits get past them.

“We’re a day from the nearest outpost,” Sakura recites as she reads the map. “If we follow the river, by tomorrow noon we should arrive at Minakawa.”

“Good map reading skills,” Kou says. “What do you suggest we do now?”

Sakura takes a look at the sky. She’s better at reading time with just the sky, sun and moon now. “Bunk down. Small, smokeless fire. Four-hour rotation.”

“Good, good. I’ll take the first then Genma and last you then your dog.” 

Then like a well-oiled machine, the merchants’ horses are fed and watered and in their rolls in a span of thirty minutes. Sakura sets up a genjutsu trap around them and bunks down. Okiku settles opposite her, sandwiching the merchants between them.

The sky above is littered with tiny twinkle of stars, the moon is starting to rise and that’s the last thing she properly sees.

There’s a tug on the bond between Okiku and her that stirs her. She leaps up even as Genma calls her name, her tanto unsheathing even in her blearily state.

She ducks, narrowly missing a lightning blade. There shouldn’t be any lightning blades in Fire country, not when lightning chakra is rare and lightning imbued blades are even rarer.

Okiku is there on her right, hurling herself through the enemies. Genma is behind her and Kohaku— 

She vaults across a dead horse, thrusting her tanto into the man. Okiku lurches to his left, a well-drilled pincher formation but the man is faster than either of them can be. His hand seals are a blur.

“Okiku!” Sakura screams, feeling the jerk on their bond. It’s a split second. A second that she sees Okiku’s death. Ninken aren’t immortal after all. Sakura pushes Okiku’s chakra away, forcibly dismissing her just before the man’s jutsu hits.

It’s a close second. 

The flare of his lighting jutsu briefly lights up the darkness and blinds her.

Sakura can see clearly that Kohaku is dead on the ground, glassy eyes staring into the fire. Her throat is slit. She shakes her head, reducing the chakra night vision in her eyes.

The man backhands her. Sakura stumbles back, white dots dancing in her vision. She anchors herself. Sensei had taught her how to fight blind, she could.

Something hits her in the back. A fist full of pain and panic punches through her chest and she collapses.

 _This can’t be part of the evaluation,_ she thinks.

“Gen—” she calls out with ragged breath.

He’s fighting two other men. There are three men lying around him. He took down three men and she couldn’t even handle one.

“Is it this one?” another man asks. Someone had cut that man across the face, deep enough that even after being completely healed, a thick, ropey scar still remained across his forehead and through the corner of an eye.

Sakura tries to push herself up, but whatever that had hit her, held her down.

“Should be,” the man she had been fighting grunts. “ _Hopefully._ Because Young-soo killed the other.”

It must be a chakra technique or something. Something like Shikamaru had done. Sakura forces her focus onto her chakra, manually channelling it through. It burns like a katon jutsu, but her fingers twitch. 

“Kill the shinobis and grab the target.”

The man reaches down to grab the last living merchant. Sakura throws herself forward, channeling chakra into the tanto.

The scarred man's hand lights up in response. Sakura manages to push the trembling merchant away. 

_'Sorry sensei,'_ are her last thoughts as the lighted hand descends.

✥.✥.✥

Rain patters down outside the rooftop. Kakashi doesn’t like summer in Konoha. It’s wet and hot. It makes everything and everyone damp and miserable.

He’s biased and knows that. Kakashi hadn’t liked summer since his six year-old summer. It’s been twenty-two years since. Time hasn’t changed his mind.

Both Obito and Rin had died in summer. The Uchiha massacre had happened in summer too. Sasuke’s defection and the sannin taking his other one and also happened in summer.

Aside from making Sakura his heir, Kakashi is a very firm believer that summers are a cursed thing.

Kakashi slides the window open. For some reason, the still air in the house stifled him. The leaves sink from the weight of the raindrops, dripping onto the back of his hand. With Sakura and Okiku gone, home seemed quieter than usual. 

He closes his eyes, letting the steady drumming on the rooftops envelope him. Who was he trying to lie to? Kakashi knew the reason for his restlessness. Sakura would ace the chuunin field evaluation and when she returns, she would be a chuunin, no longer just a genin under him. 

He’s proud of that. 

Leaping up onto the window sill, he bounces off the buildings and onto the rooftop. The clouds above rumbles as if sensing his mood and intent. The rain fell harder, large droplets drenching him instantly.

Is he ready to let her go? What will he do when she becomes a chuunin?

Kakashi leaps off the rooftop, making his way to the memorial stone. 

In normal circumstances, he would have planned for a long mission out of Konoha. Somewhere that would have taken him until autumn to complete. The summer air in Konoha stifles him.

He hates and loves the village. He wanted to curse them for driving his father to his death, or that they were the reason why he lost Obito and Rin. 

None of those accusations would be true.

The person who drove them to their deaths was him. The faster Sakura gets promoted and moves on without him, the better it would be for her.

Kakashi doesn’t think he can take another death of someone important to him in summer.

He prays to Rin and Obito, to Sensei and Kushina for a fluke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes as I'm aware I'm not very clear on the ages and dates.
> 
> Early Summer Rain: Sakura is 12 years old. Kakashi is 26.  
> As it was set just after chuunin exams and they graduated 12 and also had Kakashi for a few months (or so it seemed), Team 7 was 12 in the beginning of ESR. Towards the end of ESR, Sakura is still 12, but close to 13. The events of ESR was roughly 6 months + 
> 
> Shadowy fields of Autumn: Sakura is 14. Kakashi is 28.  
> There is a time skip, I've indicated it in this chp but in case ppl missed it. This is set 1 year + after the end of ESR. 
> 
> **Further Notes**  
>  I mentioned on different developments. As ESR touched a lot on PTSD and abuse and trauma, I didn't want to rehash it in a part 2. While none of it _magically_ disappears, *coughlikealotficsliketodocough* it wouldn't be a huge focus on it in this. It will be there, but a lot of it would be Sakura literal badassery in this. Stuff! Okay!? I hope you'll enjoy it regardless even if it's not a complete clone of part 1. D:
> 
>  **On worldbuilding and what not** (for anyone who's interested, not all would be in the stories in great detail)  
> So in my universe, the countries are huge. Based on the canon map, Fire country is pretty big. So it'd take a normal shinobi speed more than a week to cross from east to west at their fastest and non-stop, two-three weeks would be average travel time. Which is why the mission time stated by Sakura is 1 month. Konoha is set somewhere in the middle, which means it takes 1 week+ to travel to the north borders.
> 
> As the country is huge, there are main outposts on all 4 sides. These are very well-manned and supplied as they will control the outposts in their locations. So we have North, South, East, West central outposts (CNP, CSP, CEP, CWP), smaller outposts spread out throughout the countryside, then we have the camouflaged ones which are mostly border control. As they patrol the border and borders are much likely to receive attacks, the outposts are well hidden and only shinobis who know of it (and know how to bypass the visual traps, etc) would be able to find them.
> 
> In ESR, Shikamaru goes to do border patrol for 2 weeks. CEP and CSP are closer than the other outposts (as on the canon map, Konoha isn't _that_ central), so that's why it's a shorter time. Also in my mind, there are probably a few layers of border patrol. The ones on the edge would be the vanguard jounin and anbu mostly would make up these. Followed by the secondary layer and third. Thirds would be made up of mentors + rookies, easing them into different roles as a chuunin and up. Like basic military training hazing, in order words.
> 
> (are people interested in worldbuilding? Not sure if anyone's interested in reading my random thoughts of worldbuilding, not that it's important to read it since any worldbuilding that matters would be in the fic)
> 
> Beta-ed by: [kokoronokingu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokoronokingu)  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning, this chapter is dark**

Sakura wakes. That part was slightly unexpected. Sakura had assumed that she would be dead judging by the type of jutsu the scarred man had used and the angle of the hand.

Inner mutters about recklessness and Sakura couldn’t help but agree with her. Whoever these men were, they had killed Kohaku Kou and she is a jounin. Kohaku _was_ a jounin, Sakura corrects herself. Not a combat specialist, but nevertheless still a jounin. Sakura had read up on the jounin exams and what separates a special jounin, a jounin and an elite jounin. One of the basic requirements is that jounins had to be skilled in combat. Yet they had taken Kohaku down before anyone noticed anything, through her genjutsu traps, through a ninken’s sense. 

Just for a merchant? Something didn’t seem right to her.

Sakura schools a breath, cataloguing her wounds and environment. The ground beneath her was cold and even, her lungs stutter, eyes flying open. 

She hadn’t imagined this. The ground beneath her was concrete, a jail and no windows. She’s alive and why?

Her fingers are well bound and twisted, making it impossible to make a seal — not that Sakura really needs to, she knew how to twist her chakra to mimic the rise and fall when using seals. She tests the knots and it doesn’t give the slightest leeway. 

Sakura might be a Hatake now, but she’s under no impression that she’s of the slightest importance for anyone to send out a rescue. Definitely not for a civilian-bred kunoichi.

She will be lucky to die here.

“ _Fuck,”_ she exhales. The only word she could use to describe her current situation.

“Saa-chan?” a voice from the wall next to her calls out.

_‘Genma?’_ Inner has barely uttered before Sakura hurriedly worms to the wall, blinking back the heat from her eyes. 

“Are you okay?” Genma asks.

“I thought you were dead.” Sakura clenches her jaws, trying to stop the tremble. 

“I’ll get you out, I promise.”

“Get _us_ out,” she corrects, and she hears a low chuckle.

“... _Hopefully…”_

Then they fall silent, knowing that this might be their last rest. Sakura lays on the ground, hearing Genma’s noisy breathing and knows that he’s probably badly injured, that the survival rate for escaping any shinobi jail is so low that she has every instance memorised. 

✥.✥.✥

Kakashi gets antsy as the first week passes. The pack too, can sense his anxiousness. 

“Why don’t you go and see what the mission board has to offer,” Pakkun suggests after the third day of his moping. 

Kakashi turns to look and the overcast sky. Pakkun is right. He has got a mission quota to fill too, Genma isn’t around, but Raidou is. After all, Sakura isn’t going to be back for another three weeks. 

He empties his pouch and double checks his weapons. 

“ _Go,_ Boss.” Pakkun sighs and with a sharp bark, Akino jumps and bites the handle down, Urushi pushes the door open and Bull headbutts Kakashi, all but shoving him out of the door.

“Don’t come back until you got a mission for us, Boss,” Shiba barks, tossing Kakashi’s sandals out after him.

He slumps his shoulders. How far he has fallen. To be thrown out of the apartment by his ninken. 

Kakashi picks his sandals up and hops onto a nearby tree, bouncing up onto the rooftop. The humidity is so high it almost feels like he’s drowning in water. Even with the sun overcast, it still feels unbearably hot., enough that he leaps off the roof to hobble to Raidou’s apartment under the many shops’ colourful canopies. He stops to buy a matcha kakigori on a plastic cone so small that his shaved ice seems to almost fall off.

It takes him another hour of procrastination before he finally makes it to Izuna District and another thirty minutes before Kakash is finally pounding on Raidou’s door.

“Kakashi. What are you doing here?” Raidou kneads beneath his eyes with a sigh. 

“I’ve been… I _mean_ mission? I haven’t cleared my mission quota for the month yet,” Kakashi says as he toes his sandals off, feeling a relief as the cool dark wood floor siphons the heat from his body. 

Raidou pours two cold glasses of tea and pushes one to Kakashi. “Considering it’s now _late_ afternoon and late in the week, any decent missions would likely be gone. But _luckily_ for you, Aoba was assigned a mission and he needs a team.”

“Aoba? That’s rare.” Aoba is part of the internal shinobi force. He, like most Yamanakas, Naras and Kohakus, often work to protect the village from internal threats. An intelligence shinobi going out of village on a mission usually only means bad things. “Do we know what the mission is?”

Raidou shakes his head. Kakashi isn’t surprised, if it’s an intelligence mission like he suspects it is, then the leading officer - Aoba in this case, would have kept it entirely under wraps until the actual briefing. 

It’s worrisome. Kakashi prays it’s not Kumo this time. The thought of his student out near Kumo with a mission problematic enough that Aoba has to go out strikes him hard.

“Then we should just go to Aoba for a briefing.” Kakashi stands, sliding Raidou’s kitchen window open.

Just a fluke, Sensei, Kakashi prays. 

✥.✥.✥

“You can’t go, Kakashi-san,” are the first words Aoba says when he finds out that they’re there for his mission briefing. Kakashi hadn’t even considered the possibility of being rejected. He’s the longest running anbu captain, the captain with the lowest mortality rate and a A-rank shinobi that’s close enough to S-rank that several bingos advice to flee on sight.

“What do you mean by that? Isn’t it _your_ mission?” Kakashi asks, not subtly implying that it’s an intelligence mission. 

Aoba pushes his glasses up somewhat anxiously. “It is… But _you_ can’t go.”

“Aoba, I thought your mission was… _sensitive_? Wouldn’t having Kakashi be a good backup?” Raidou flickers his eyes over the other two selected shinobis. 

Nara Ensui is terrifying enough that he could see why Aoba would have picked him, but Okita Takeo… aside from his chakra sensing, he’s not particularly impressive, or not impressive enough that he would take on a possibly high-risk critical mission.

“Yes, Kakashi would be a good backup,” Aoba says, glancing at Kakashi’s blank face. “But he can’t come.” 

Aoba purses his lips and palms his forehead. “Shodaime’s wrinkled balls,” he mutters and slaps a privacy seal onto the meeting table. “It’s Kiri, Kakashi. There’s been rumours that Yagura was assassinated and the three tails is loose.”

> _“Kakashi-kun. They sealed the three tails in me. You have to kill me. I can barely control myself.’_

“Our mission is to confirm Yagura’s death, find the three tails and seal it.” 

> _“Kakashi! Please. I can’t—”_

“You _can’t_ come.”

Kakashi grits his teeth. He’s tried to move past this, but it keeps turning up like a bad shuriken. He’s been in Kiri before as an anbu, why would it matter if it’s in Kiri or finding the three tails? 

“I have the sharingan, you’ll need that for the three tails,” Kakashi presses.

> _The sound of the birds screaming in the air, the rain poured down so heavily that he could barely see more than ten metres ahead of him. The chidori still hadn’t been perfected but if he didn’t kill all these people, they might not get out in time._

“Listen—” Aoba sighs and leans forward. 

“Troublesome… It’s not that he doesn't want to bring you,” Ensui interrupts as he inspects his fingernails. “It’s _summer_. It’s _Kiri_ and it’s _three tails._ While your mental health has been on the uptick, all three are your triggers. Your counsellor has strongly advised against that and considering how your arms are curled are defensively, which I think is probably you trying to stop a certain reaction or perhaps trembling, I think your counsellor is right. _There._ I said it for you. So you _can’t_ come. Tenzo is coming in your place.” 

“... _Ensui…”_ Aoba mutters

Ensui shrugs. “We _are_ on a time crunch…” Kakashi hears Ensui retort even as he turns to flee the meeting room. He’s not wrong. 

Kakashi is weak. 

> _He stabbed through another guy and the image of the guy flickered and dissipated, revealing Rin’s face._
> 
> _“No!”_
> 
> _“I can’t… let… myself… destroy… Ko—”_

Sliding into his apartment, he doesn’t even care if he stepped on one of the ninken’s foot or tail. 

> _“For… give… me…”_

Kakashi hunches over the sink, scrubbing his arm furiously. 

> _The lightning flashes followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder and he sees the blood dribbling down her face, her smiling face delineated in flash of light._
> 
> _“Th… ank… you…”_

Firm hands stop his vigorous scrubbing. “...Hatake Kakashi, you are not there. You are safe in Konoha…”

They draw him away from the sink and he falls to his knees.

“Weak… I’m weak…” Kakashi laughs hysterically.

“No. No you’re not.”

He looks up and sees Raidou is crouched next to him with his large first aid box. “I can’t even go and help Aoba… how is that not weak?”

Raidou takes a seat next to him and Pakkun settles on Kakashi knee, nudging him to pet him. “When I was eleven, the war broke out. My jounin sensei was an average run-off-mill jounin. He told us that if there wasn’t a war, none of us would have passed. We were not ready to be genins.” Carefully, Raidou dabs the blood away, spreading antiseptic medication over Kakashi’s scoured skin. 

“My teacher didn’t have an option to fail us. None of us in that generation did. This was five years before you graduated. The first attack of Iwa had taken out a large portion of couriers.’

Raidou bandages his hand up deftly and sets it down. He repacks the first aid box, still staring at it when he closes it shut. “Being a courier was easy and difficult. By then I was thirteen and had gotten used to the rhythm of it. Just before another run, I saw my teammate out on a date with a boy I had a crush on. I was angry and jealous and accused Yoko of stealing him. We argued all the way. Taiko tried to mediate. I was thirteen and thought he was the love of my life.

“That was when our team got ambushed. A team from Ame managed to surround us, we fought but we weren’t good enough. Yoko turns to us and yells for us to run. And before I could say anything, he jumps in front of us taking the bulk of an attack.” Raidou traces his facial scarring. “It was an acid attack, he died instantly. So did Taiko.”

Raidou raises his head and smiles at Kakashi. 

“The package was delivered safely. And every day after that, when I look in the mirror and see my acid burns, I remember them. Of the foolishness I did then. If I hadn’t been so angry about his date, if I had paid more attention, if Taiko wasn’t busy trying to mediate… That is normal. We are not weak.”

Kakashi looks down at his hand, tightening his fist and feeling the pain. “But you don’t seem to act like…”

Kakashi wants to say ‘like he has burdens’, except it’s disrespectful. If Raidou managed to get over it then why can’t he? 

“Kakashi… you probably hear this a lot from your counsellor, but you need to learn to forgive yourself. It sucked, they died. You can’t change it. All the regrets in the world won’t change it.”

“That’s easy to say,” Kakashi mutters.

“Easy words,” Raidou agrees. “But that’s a good starting point. As long as you tell yourself that every day, things will slowly change. Nothing worth having is quick. Just like watching Sakura grow strong and get over her problems. Or like watching Tenzo learning to socialise.”

Kakashi stares at the ceiling, words burning in his throat. “It sucked. They died. I can’t change it and all the regrets in the world can’t change it.”

“There you go, first steps.”

✥.✥.✥

“My my, look what we have here…” an almost serpentine voice drawls. Sakura turns and Inner recognises the boy in front of her cell - Kabuto, the boy who gave up far too easily during the chuunin exams. 

“I don’t even know why you want it. It’s not even a clan shinobi or one with large chakra reserves,” grumbles the man with the thick scar across his forehead. 

_‘She,’_ Inner mutters.

Sakura could summon Okiku if they open the door. Her reserves would— No, the last time she managed to summon Okiku on her own chakra, she had almost passed out from exhaustion. Sensei had said that she would probably be able to do it next year. So either with a chakra pill or if Okiku nudges her through their bond. That’s if just having Okiku would help them breakthrough wherever they are. 

“It is much better than a clan shinobi or chakra reserves,” Kabuto says. “I’m glad you didn’t kill this one, Gyeong-Su, because it’s _priceless.”_

Sakura bites her tongue, trying to force herself from talking back or trembling. 

“It’s a kekkai genkai copier.”

“ _She,_ ” Genma snaps out from the cell beside her. 

Sakura sees Gyeong-su step forward and kick Genma through the bars. “Shut up, worm.”

Kabuto approaches the bars. His smile sends a frisson of fear scuttling up her spine. “Welcome home Thirty-O-six, it’s been awhile.” 

Her jaw shakes and she clenches it, nails digging into the flesh of her palm. She hadn’t heard that for a long time. 

Not since Papa died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning/afternoon/evening. I have some stuff to say.
> 
> **First of all,** no I haven't died in a ditch. Sorry this took awhile. I have been pretty tired since Dec. So there hadn't much updates. I'm still on semi-hiatus. I'm still trying to write when I have energy to. It goes great some days, and not so great on many days unfortunately. 
> 
> **2ndly,** this arc (consisting of the next 4 chps) would be pretty dark. So do prepare your heart.
> 
> **3rdly,** Sakura wouldn't be trapped with Kabuto for the entire of this story. Just the next few chps. There are reasons why I did it this way, it'd become apparent at the end of the arc. Okay, there was that one huge battleaxe and stuff......... WELL, a huge battleaxe soon. And there'd be a lot more Kakashi, Genma, Raidou in this fic. 
> 
> Stay safe and healthy!
> 
> **On worldbuilding and what not** I had the idea that different countries had their own cultures within hidden continents and with that, differences in naming system and what not. Oto is special, because in spite of them being founded in Rice Country, Oto isn't mostly Rice people but all the people Orochimaru poached/kidnapped/blackmailed across the continent. 
> 
> Also, Kakashi thinks he's hiding his triggers so well when it's actually people (he regularly works with) knowing his triggers and working around them while he's working on getting back. I wanted Raidou and Kakashi to be contrasts of how PTSD works. Not everyone's PTSD works the same, likewise for depression and anxiety. Raidou's is carefully hidden while Kakashi is messier and much more noticeable. Mental illnesses are difficult to detect. I spent a long time with mine until I had a nervous breakdown. Just because they don't show it, doesn't mean they don't suffer from it. 
> 
> And... I'm rambling. Hope you enjoyed this. Do leave a comment. Thank you.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger warnings:** Dissociation, hallucinations (caused by drugs), soft torture is mentioned

Truth to be told, Genma is surprised he’s even alive. If they managed to kill Koko, killing him would be a walk in the park. Koko might not have been combat class, but her kekkai genkai would have made her _very difficult_ to kill. 

He takes a careful breath, trying to ignore the pain from the bruises all around his chest as he inhales and exhales. 

Their captors had taken a lot of effort to take him alive and that can only indicate two things, either an information extraction or a hostage for his teammate’s compliance. Out of those two, he doesn’t think any reason why they’d risk having a combat jounin as a hostage. So it’s only likely that he’s here for information extraction. Shiranui Genma isn’t terrified of the likelihood of torture, he’s terrifed for the kid in the next cell because the only reason that they would keep her is too dark for him to even want to think about. Even if it means his death, he will get her out, he mouths that oath to himself. 

_No one is coming for them._

Neither of them are kekkai genkai carriers and while he does have critical information, he’s a veteran anbu. He knows how to kill himself with or without chakra if it comes down to it.

Genma shoves all his worries out of his mind and forces himself to focus. 

He can’t be Genma now, he has to be Monkey. That’s the only way he can get her out.

Monkey discreetly tests the bars. The bars are solid, made for people who have far more chakra stores that he would ever have. Naruto could explode here and barely make it out. Monkey deduces that trying to get through the bars with any form of jutsu would be a no-go. 

The ground is equally well reinforced and there are no windows. So the only way they’re getting out is through the door. As long as he can get the chakra restraints out, or even just out of the restraints, he will be able to use his seals. Monkey subtly tests the knots. Tight but not tight enough to cut off circulation, a perfect example of a proper prisoner restraint. And they wouldn’t care if he had to pee, Monkey have been through this.

_But not Sakura-chan._

He forces his heart to calm down even as his mind conjures all the things that their captors might have planned for her. He made a promise to Kakashi. He can’t let Kakashi lose another important person. 

He senses another shinobi following their guard coming down the hallway. 

Monkey had recognised Gyeong-su that night. Gyeong-su had been flagged by their intelligence as a shinobi of interest: A-rank, lightning affinity, ex-Kumo. He had developed a jutsu which had been flagged of interest to steal by the experimental jutsu lab. 

He takes in the silver haired boy behind Gyeong-su. 

Yakushi Kabuto. B-rank, wind and water affinity, Oto, Konoha traitor.

Genma rears in indignation and fear. Not because he’s scared of Kabuto but because of the man he’s affiliated with. Genma had been one of the first responders when Orochimaru fled. The fight with Orochimaru with three full anbu squads is one of the nightmares that haunts him even years later. He remembers the fear so palpable, it seemed to choke him and even then, with all the resources, the anbu captains and full chakra reserves, the fight had nearly cost him his leg, career and life.

“It is much better than a clan shinobi or chakra reserves,” Kabuto says. “I’m glad you didn’t kill this one, Gyeong-Su, because it’s _priceless.”_

The good old dehumanising routine. Kumo had done it, Iron had done it. Both Genma and Monkey are used to it, doesn’t make it easier though. 

“It’s a kekkai genkai copier.”

He bites back the retort on Sakura not being a kekkai genkai copier. Her skill is far more complex and incredible than just having a bloodline that he’s sure they’re thinking of. 

“ _She,_ ” he sneers at them, unable to stand them trying to dehumanise Sakura. 

“Shut up, worm.” Genma dodges Gyeong-su’s kick, keeping a close eye as he sees Kabuto approach Sakura’s bars. If they’re after her “kekkai genkai copying” abilities, then which would it be? Turning her or… 

He swallows hard. He’ll get her out of here. He’s gotten out of situations similar to this, it’s not impossible.

“Welcome home Thirty-O-six, it’s been awhile.” 

3006? Genma lays on the ground. Did Sakura recognise the number? Are they trying to put a number on her now? 

He had thought of them making her defect to their side, or even the darker possibility, but if they gave her a number — if she already had a number. Unable to see her reactions, he focuses on his ears, wishing he had the Hatake’s or Inuzuka’s canine hearing. 

All Genma hears is the rasp of her breathing in the heavy silence. 

“Didn’t think you’d ever hear it again, did you?” Kabuto says, almost gently. “We got you back, that’s the most important thing. You’re back, Thirty-O-six.”

How could that even be possible? Could she be an experiment? Or was Kizashi… 

As thoughts ran through his mind, Genma hoped for Sakura to say something that refuted the traitor’s words. Kabuto could be just saying just to throw Sakura off or even to add on to the dehumanising factor. Words spoken by a known traitor shouldn’t be easily believed.

“How—” he hears her whisper and a dark, sinking feeling swallows him.

“I was friends with Kizashi, we shared many things.” 

Genma can see a nauseating smile on Kabuto. Kizashi who tortured her in his basement. He was a traitor too? Then what about Sakura? 

“He kept me abreast on your skills. I was surprised to hear that he kept a secret on your kekkai genkai copying abilities. A pleasant surprise indeed.”

Sakura’s still barely older than a kid. Not only had Kizashi tortured her, she was someone’s experiment? Hysteria rises unbidden. Unable to stand the thoughts anymore, Genma lets Monkey take over.

“Let her out. Take her to Xuebing.” 

Gyeong-su opens the door without complains and drags her out. Her face is almost as grey as the walls. 

“Genma-san,” she pauses at his cell and Monkey looks back at her with cold eyes. 

Sakura is a possible security risk. He will need to reconsider his plans.

✥.✥.✥

Genma’s eyes were so cold when he looked at her. 

_Almost like Yuriko-obasama._

Sakura smothers the tendril of hysteria. Genma is nothing like Yuriko-obasama. He cared for her and worried for her. 

She forces it all down. She needs to focus now. Academy training had gone through the procedures and practical for such scenarios 

_and so had Papa._

She will have to look for an open window, a possible escape route. 

Sakura gets the chance to do none when Gyeong-su brings her to a large, empty room with only a metal chair in the middle and a man whose eyes are paler and colder than ice.

“Xuebing, I brought you your next project.” Gyeong-su throws her onto the chairs. He surges his chakra and her bindings fall off. 

“It’s a kid,” says the man in a deep bass voice. He steps forward, his long fingernails trailing down her arm before snapping the chair’s metal shackles around her wrist. 

“Kabuto-sama wants it primed for Clear Glass.”

‘So it’s special?”

Gyeong-su shrugs a beefy shoulder. “So he says. I don’t see it, I think it’s better off bleeding on my axe.”

“You think everything is better bleeding on your axe,” Xuebing says dryly. He bends down, a slow smile curving across his face, his long black hair tickling Sakura’s face. “I am excited to find out what makes you so special.”

He taps her nose. Ice dripped down into her core as she stared paralyzed at him. 

_The important point is that if you ever get caught, no one in this world is going to help you, except yourself._

Xuebing inspects the tiny vials of liquid. 

_“One day you’ll be caught,” Papa tells her and lifts her onto the table, strapping her arms down. “They will ask you things and when that happens, you’ll thank me for training you in this.”_

“It's just me and you, Thirty-O-six.” Xuebing caresses her face with a long fingernail. He plunges the needle into the vein on her arm. 

“Don’t worry,” he whispers as the thick viscous liquid empties into her veins. “I will be gentle.” 

“We will start with the first one,” Papa says with a gentle smile. “Tell me Thirty-O-six, what makes you so special.”

Sakura stares wide-eyed at him, mouth opening closing, unable to produce a word. 

_Papa is alive._

✥.✥.✥

The missions with Raidou are laughably easy. A rank in name, but more like a C rank. Kakashi rests on his haunches, watching Tachibana and a portly merchant duke it out verbally over the prices. It’s easy work and a distraction until Sakura gets back home. By now, they would have finished their mission and be on their way home.

Kakashi is certain that she would pass her chuunin field test. While his own had been so long ago, he remembered it being laughably easy. 

Sakura would have to pass it. It’s impossible that she would fail it after all he trained her. 

Kakashi didn’t want to think of the failure that he had been in retaining Sasuke’s loyalty or that everything had been in such a fiery mess than Jiraiya had no choice but to leave Konoha with Naruto.

It didn’t mean he wasn’t good enough. Kakashi tells himself that even though deep inside he knew it wasn’t true. 

Hatake Kakashi is a failure. He always has been.

Kakashi forced himself to concentrate on his surroundings. Spinning his kunai idly, he cast a beady dark grey out, across the room and over the balcony. There’s no reason to anticipate an attack or an infiltration attack. It’s unlikely that they would get through Raidou’s chakra web or his extra sharp nose and ears. 

Tachibana gesticulates at Kakashi and the other merchant pales.

It won’t be the first or the last time that their client had used him to threaten their rivals. 

Finally, after the last three days of negotiating, Tachibana and the other merchant sign papers, ink the contracts with their thumbprints and bow their farewells. 

“Finally! On the way home!” the Tachibana exclaims, patting his satchel happy. “Hideki-sama will be pleased to know that the negotiations with Daizumura have gone as planned.”

Raidou smiles at the Tachibana. Now that the mission is more or less concluded, Kakashi isn’t sure he’s excited to see Konoha again.

It won’t be another week before Sakura returns. Too short of a time frame for a mission, too long to be stuck in muggy Konoha.

Tachibana continues making lighthearted jokes undeterred by Kakashi’s lack of reactions.

“We should throw a big party for Sakura, don’t you think?” Raidou says, breaking through his messy thoughts. 

Kakashi remembers how she had cried when they threw her a birthday party. No one had ever cared for her birthday, aside from Ino. After all that she’s been through, Sakura deserves all the parties and celebrations that life should have. Even if that means that he would have to endure Sakura throwing him one too. 

He would need to get her a promotion gift too. 

“I’m thinking of commissioning a set of armguards for her. What do you think?” he turns to Raidou with a cocked eyebrow. 

“That’s a good idea, we can get either Genma to draw on seals for her—” Raidou says.

“I’m thinking of Kondo blacksmiths—” 

“You should consider Ryuko!” Tachibana suggests with a bright grin. 

Kondo Blacksmiths are the regular weaponry shop that most jounins get their supplies from. They’re not particularly special, but they are a cut above Hinoka. Kakashi hadn’t heard of Ryuko before and that’s surprising.

“Ryuko is one of Tachibana’s subsidy shops. Ryuko used to be Uchiha only supplier, but since the…” he motions awkwardly. “...Ryuko lost their clientele as well as several of their helpers.”

Kakashi remembered the set of kunai and ninja wires that Shisui had gotten for him. They were very good.

“Since our takeover, Ryuko is now a specialised smithery. They only do commissioned work. Once we submit the mission completion at the tower, I will be happy to introduce you!” Tachibana bounces along the path. 

“That will be much appreciated,” Kakashi says after an elbow prod from Raidou. Tachibana doesn’t even seem to notice the misstep, or perhaps he doesn’t care. The merchant almost reminds him of Naruto in an overly optimistic way.

At least he hasn’t failed Tachibana like he did with Naruto

_And Sasuke._

_And Rin._

_And Obito._

Kakashi heaves a slow sigh as the gates come into view. The soaring red gates with the large ‘Peace’ painted across it. Kotetsu and Izumo are on gate duty, as always. How anyone could want guard duty baffles Kakashi.

Kotetsu looks at Kakashi, his usually jovial face is empty. Breath catches in his throat. 

_Sage, no. Please no._

“Jounin Hatake, you are required at the Hokage’s office urgently.”

_He’s failed her again._

The cold closes on him even as he dashes across the rooftops. His heartbeats roaring in his ears, swamping out everything. His chakra almost fails as he skids into the Hokage’s entry way, the floor cracks under his feet. 

“Hokage-sama!”

Tsunade takes a look at him and dismisses the team she had been talking to. 

“You’re here,” she sighs. Pulling out a bottle of sake, Tsunade takes a large swig. 

“Hokage-sama?” Kakashi repeats, hopeful that it might be an emergency mission instead of what he thinks it is. 

_He can’t lose another person._

“On the fourteen of July, Hatake Sakura, Shiranui Genma and Kouhaku Kou departed on their mission. A basic chunnin level escort mission to ascertain Hatake Sakura’s ability as a chuunin.” 

_No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This can’t be happening._

Kakashi stiffens his limbs, trying in vain to stop their trembling. 

“They missed their check in point on tenth August. A tracking team was sent out a week later. On their last known site, a fight had taken place.”

Colour bleeds out of Kakashi’s face as he processes what Tsunade was saying.

Another black scroll, another lost loved one. He shouldn’t have let her in, shouldn’t have trained her. Genma— Oh _sage, Genma._

“... as their bodies were not found, Hatake Sakura, Shiranui Genma and Kouhaku Kou are now marked as Missing-in-action.”

Kakashi swivels his head up at her in shock. 

Not dead.

_Not yet._

He can change this. “Hokage-sama, I would like to track them down.”

She purses her lips and palms her forehead. “I would say no, but you are one of our best trackers and even if you weren’t…” Kakashi would have still gone against orders goes unsaid.

“Pick your team.” She pauses and hesitates like she’s calculating her words. “Take a medic along,” Tsunade says carefully. She doesn’t elaborate and Kakashi doesn’t take a moment to read her subtext. He’s too busy reviewing all the possibilities for his team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are dark implications in Genma’s thought processes. It’s probably not very far-fetched if you really want to know what. I won’t ever explicitly say it in the fic because it’ll never happen. Let me know if you can’t guess it, but really want to know in the comments. Ah... don't worry, NONE of the torture is going to be explicit. This is probably the limit of what we'll be ever seeing in this fic.
> 
> We just have 1 more chp to get through before we get to Konoha. And recovery will start. As you might guess, I wanted to touch on Sakura's trauma on her dad. Things are iffy, things are going to get iffier (if there's such a word). They will get better... and yes, there will be a happy ending.
> 
> **Further notes:**  
>  I've recently been told that people might be interested in writing in the same ESR verse and have created a sandbox sheet for anyone who might be interested. (If they want) If you are interested, just let me know in the comments, or talk to me on discord. 
> 
> **Of Worldbuilding and what not**  
>  Well yea, there's... a lot of worldbuilding I guess... I thought... I wanted a myriad of cultures... I'm not sure if it puts anyone off... idk. I'm too tired to write my worldbuilding rant... let me know if you want to know anything and I'll reply.
> 
> Stay safe and healthy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold your tissue boxes people! And get ready for it
> 
>  **Trigger warnings:** Depression, hallucinations (caused by drugs), dissociation, suicide attempt

Sakura struggled to keep a hold of herself. She knew the things she was seeing weren’t real. Papa died; Mama died. She had identified their bodies in the morgue. Sakura still remembers that afternoon after a D-rank mission. It had been an overcast afternoon; she had walked out of the hospital feeling a heavy weight had lifted. Part of her had been unbelieving, part of her was ecstatic. 

It is a memory that no one can convince her otherwise. 

Papa died. His body had been cold for a long time by the time she had arrived. She checked all the little dots that she memorised his skin having. 

She sucks the pain in, forcing herself to breathe. Sensei and Raidou had said that Papa shouldn’t have done that to her. Would she have lasted for so long if he hadn’t? 

“Interesting, you are holding up very well.”

Sakura digs in, trying to use Inner a barrier against them. Sinking deeper into her mind, she reaches out to Inner. 

There is no Inner.

Just a wisp, an echo left in her head, then an absence.

“Wonder what happen if I gave you another dose.” The pen scratches on a piece of paper. A needle slides under her skin and heat fills her veins. 

Sakura screams. Too much pain. She turns away from it, just like she always did during Papa’s sessions and slips away.

✥.✥.✥

Sakura moves the moment she comes to. She breaks from the pathetic restraints with the chakra enhancement Raidou had trained her. Her hands steals a kunai from her captor’s pouch. She doesn’t think. Papa had taught her that a moment of hesitation can cost her her freedom. 

Sakura slices the nearest man’s throat wide open, uncaring that his arterial spray splashes all over her. She has to do this quick. Get the guards, get a chakra pill or two, find Genma and burst out of her. She hasn’t got quite all the pieces together yet, but like Shikamaru had taught her — no plan survives the first contact. She doesn’t need _all_ the pieces; she just needs the main pieces.

She flashes forward, stabbing her kunai up into his heart and another across the throat and stops. Eyes widening as she takes in the man she had just killed.

He gurgles, hands gripping his throat.

“Genma! No, no, _no!_ ”

Sakura catches him, holds him as she tries to piece his throat back together. “Sage of six path, I thought. I _thought—”_

✥.✥.✥

No matter how much Raidou looked, turned the scene over with a fine comb with Tenzo, Aburame Muta and Shikamaru, there were no leads. Even the barely there scent that Bisuke had picked up leads them to nowhere. 

Exhaustion lined Kakashi’s frame. Raidou thinks he hasn’t slept a wink since the meeting with the Hokage. He had pushed them hard, but this is one of those times where effort would yield no result. They all had been on search and rescue missions like this before. Missions where they had to turn around and deliver bad news to the anxious family. Logically, Raidou knew all this and he knew that Kakashi did too.

At some point, they had to stop.

Raidou looks up at the night sky as they approach the Konoha gates. Kakashi wouldn’t voice it and neither would Shikamaru because their comrades aren’t a mission that they could pick and drop easily. 

It’s probably lucky that the guards at the gate aren’t shinobi they are close to. Raidou isn’t sure what he would say if they had asked. 

Genma is one of his best friends and a little more than that. His first real relationship, his jounin partner for the longest time until recently. 

Then there’s Sakura.

Shikamaru stumbles a little and Raidou grabs his elbow, half steering, half holding him up. 

‘ _It would be his first comrade death,’_ the words flicker across Raidou’s mind before he could consciously think of it. The first one is always the hardest. 

He pursed his lips. There aren’t any words to comfort him. Raidou knows how Shikamaru would likely react. Most shinobis either take up vengeance or a habit of their fallen comrade to carry with them. 

Raidou releases Shikamaru’s elbow when he regains his balance. None of the team is eager to report to the Hokage. No motives, no enemies, no case. Whoever had killed them has gotten away with it and it chaffs. 

It takes them almost forty minutes to reach the Hokage’s office. Godaime is at her table, nursing a bottle of sake when Shizune lets them in. 

“Report,” she says.

Raidou glances at Kakashi when he doesn’t reply instantly. Kakashi had withdrawn into himself. Godaime looks at Kakashi with a soft look then inclines her head at Raidou. 

“Team Kakashi arrived on scene. As Team Kouu had reported, there were no chakra traces, no scene traces and no physical traces left by the enemies. We found no clues to who they were or even where they were from. Whoever who did this, they were specialists. The tracks were covered well. Had it not been for Sakura’s summon who marked their camping spot, it would have been looked over completely.”

Raidou could see the tense lines deepening around Godaime’s eyes even through her fuinjutsu supported genjutsu. The evidence, or lack thereof, could only mean one of the three things the Hokage would likely order. Considering neither Genma nor Sakura were kekkai genkai holders, he knew their options were limited to only two.

“Team Kakashi,” Godaime says tersely. Raidou straightens up at her words, nails digging into his fist behind his back. “You were given two months to find any clues pertaining to the survival of Team Kouhaku. I had extended the deadline by another two months, but still. No bodies, no clues. _Nothing_.” 

He closes his eyes, forcing himself to take slow deep breaths.

“As of the thirteen of January, six months from their disappearance, I am forced to declare Kouhaku Kou, Shiranui Genma, Hatake Sakura… _killed in action.”_ Her jaw shakes at the last three words, but still Godaime grits them out.

“Hokage-sama…” Shikamaru and Kakashi bursts out. 

“Please, we could still look for them,” Shikamaru continues, uncaring of Kakashi’s interruption. “They could still be alive. If they were captured—” 

“If they were captured and still are… then we just have to pray to the Sage of Six paths and the Shinigami that their deaths would be merciful,” Godaime cuts him off with a slam of her sake bottle shattering on the table. 

“We could get them back!” Kakashi insists. 

“With what, Kakashi? There were no clues. Nothing! Team Kouhaku missed their checkpoint on the tenth of August. Their last checkpoint had been on the twentieth of July! I’ve already dragged out the proceedings as long as I could. Protocol indicates that any missing-in-action would be classified as killed-in-action after three months.”

“But they still could be alive…”

Godaime sighs heavily. “I’m sorry Kakashi.”

He rears back, shoulders slumping. Then with a single hand seal, Kakashi disappears from the office, leaving nothing but a few falling leaves. Tenzo hurriedly bows and dismisses himself too. 

Tenzo would go and find Kakashi, Raidou knows he can trust him to make sure Kakashi is okay. 

She turns to Raidou. “I’m sorry.”

He nods. “I understand.” 

“I trust you’ll be alright enough to prepare their funerals?”

He nods again.

“Dismissed then.” Raidou ushers Shikamaru to the door when she calls out quietly. “For what it’s worth, I think they’re too resilient to be dead too. But we know how this plays out. Kakashi needs the closure.”

Raidou understands this. He’s seen several of his comrades driven crazy over searching for their lost comrades for years, refusing to believe that they’re dead. 

“Come on,” he steers Shikamaru to the Crooked Kunai bar. “Let’s get you a drink.”

✥.✥.✥

She is warm. She hears a strange sound, a sound that she could only describe as air bubbling through water.

_Water?_

What water?

She gasps. Water fills her throat and nostrils. Her limbs flounder, splashing frantically. There is a long keening sound somewhere, mixed with different voices screaming or talking loudly. She can't tell the difference.

Everything is a haze.

Hard things grab her and pull her out of the water. Everything still is a garble.

She thrashes, reaching for her throat and eyes. The thing that pulled her out talks to her in a deep voice sounding vaguely familiar, holding her hands down. She is pressed against the thing, his chest vibrates, seemingly murmuring the same words over and over again.

It takes her a few moments, or maybe hours. Time is hazy at best, especially when her eyes are not cooperating.

"You're okay, Sakura-chan," are the words when she finally registers it.

"Gen?" Her throat hurts when she forces those words out.

She was protecting something. What it is, she can’t really remember. She remembers being dragged out of her warm bedroll, the dark night above then nothing.

Sakura coughs, trying to get the water out of her lungs. She coughs until a metallic taste fills her mouth and still nothing comes out. 

"You're okay, Sakura-chan," the voice repeats again. He’s warm, the weight of his arms around her comforts her. She knows this person. 

Hands reaching up to where the face might be, he grabs her hands and puts them on his face. “It’s Raidou,” the voice says. “Oh sage, we thought we lost you too.”

She feels the familiar puckered skin across his nose, her limbs tremble as she takes a long whiff of his vest. It’s him. Her nose and touch tells her that, she _should_ be able to trust it.

But she can’t. She hears Inner at the back of her head whispering ‘ _liar!’_

She wants to know. Raidou is safety and familial love. He’s the uncle that she could always count on.

What happened, what happened, what happened?

‘Tell me! Someone tell me something!’ she wants to scream even as ‘Raidou’ passes her to another set of warm arms and yet another familiar smell. 

She doesn’t.

“Where’s Genma?” she asks instead.

“Oh Sakura-chan,” the warm arms murmurs. Likely ‘Yamato’, she deduces. “I’m so sorry. Genma’s gone.”

‘No! That’s a lie,’ Sakura wants to scream. She can’t, she wouldn’t.

Whatever that happened, Genma needs her to be strong now.

Genma’s not dead.

He _can’t_ be. 

✥.✥.✥

Monkey tries his best to keep track of time. He counts every patrol interval, every meal interval. They don’t try to extract information from him. They don’t do even anything with him. To what he can tell, he’s been forgotten.

Forgotten is good, forgotten means they’ll drop their guards around him. Forgotten means his chance of escaping is high.

Then they drag Sakura back and dump her in his cell. She’s a bloody mess. Not just her face but also her arms. They had shot her up with something. 

Genma surges back, full of horror and rage. 

“ _Fuck,_ Kid. What the fuck did they do to you?”

He pats her cheek, the only non-bloody spot on her body. Pulling an eyelid down, he checks her for poisoned symptoms or anything that would tell him what they had shot her with. 

What if they gave her stuff that they gave Tenzo too?

Chill claws down his back. 

“Come on kid. Wake up.”

She doesn’t wake up, she doesn’t even rouse. How long can she last in here? 

Genma pulls her head onto his lap, mindful of all the injuries on her. 

“Hang in there, Kid.”

✥.✥.✥

Kakashi doesn’t think he can do this again. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t lose another teammate again. A promise he had kept for a decade even as an Anbu captain. He’s kept the promise for so long and yet— 

He falters as he looks up into the mirror in his black kimono. He’s tempted to run away like he always does for every emotionally charged event. The words that Raidou had been making him repeat to himself are stuck in his mouth. The words are a lie. 

It’s his fault. He got close to Sakura, he loved her like a father does to a daughter. It’s his curse that killed her. Kakashi _knew_ that all the people he loved would die. 

He knew, knew, knew.

Kakashi grips the sink, forcing himself to stand upright.

Sakura’s death is in his hands. He has to own up to it, make sure she gets a proper funeral. A funeral like the one Rin and Obito had gotten.

He pulls his mask up and looks himself in the mirror. He’s a blight to the people he loves. This is a certainty he knows in his bones. No words will change it.

Tenzo is waiting for him outside the bathroom. 

Kakashi has to distance himself from Tenzo too. After Sakura, Tenzo would be next. He has to do it for his safety. 

Shikamaru is a mess even for the Nara’s usual apathetic appearance. Kakashi had been so focused on himself, he hadn’t spared a thought for how Shikamaru had been. Shikamaru is Sakura’s best friend and perhaps given some time, maybe a little more than that.

Now neither of them would ever know how things might turn out.

He’s never going to see Sakura wield every weapon like he promised her she would. 

A small funeral. No special honours, no parade. Just a speech by Raidou, his trembling hands making the first chipping of Sakura and Genma’s names on the memorial and a lighted pyre as a symbolism of where their bodies should have been.

Kakashi returns home to the silent apartment.

Kakashi is tired now.

✥.✥.✥

Genma stirs when he feels Sakura rousing. 

“Kid! You’re awake!”

Her eyes widen at him, glancing frantically at him then at the bars. 

“This is a dream,” she mutters. “This is all fake. Fake. Fake. Don’t believe.”

“Kid, this isn’t a dream,” he says.

“You aren’t real! You are dead. I killed you.”

Was it hallucinatory drugs? Those were always the most messed up shit.

Genma quickly puts her hand on his chest. “I’m alive. Can you feel my heartbeat?”

“You are dead. I killed you. This is a lie.” She repeats to herself, her hand shakes violently in his and he tightens his grip over her.

“I’m here Sakura-chan. I am real. Remember your last birthday? Kakashi bought you twenty bowls of anmitsu. Or the time we pranked Kakashi and dyed his hair?”

“This is not real. Nothing is real.” Tears pool in her eyes. 

“And that time we painted Pakkun’s toenails—” 

She sobs and he continues talking until she falls asleep in his arms. 

He rocks her the best he can with both hands still bound together, lips quietly murmuring all the things that only he knows about. He can’t take her away from all this yet. The only thing he can do is anchor her down, be her unwavering rock in this tempest.

✥.✥.✥

Hound pushes himself on. He breaks into the enemy's stronghold without caring if his teammates are in place.

Hound is a weapon. Hound has no fears, no worries. He is nothing. 

Hound dodges around the missing-nin’s blade. He can almost see Sakura wielding her tanto the same way. The look of determination as she tries to convert her katas into working battle reflexes. Hound sees the blade. A perfect position. He should move, dodge it or deflect it.

Maybe it's time.

Hound is tired of struggling. He doesn’t want to be Hound or Kakashi anymore.

“Hound!”

The blade stops, just a bare millimetre from his throat. Shadow from Stag is attached to the missing-nin’s shadow. Stag raises his arm and the missing-nin copies his motion, slicing his own throat off instead.

The shadow detaches and Stag storms towards Hound. “What in Sage's name were you thinking!?” He grips Hound’s vest, staring up at him. 

“Who in Shodaime’s saggy balls let him back?” Stag asks the rest of the team. 

“It was urgent and classified. Hound was the only tracker they could get on short notice,” Fish says.

“Fuck you all!” Stag pushes his mask up and rubs his face angrily. 

Stag— Ensui pulls Hound’s face down. “You listen to me carefully. I don’t care what in sage’s name your fucking record is. I don’t care what your fucking rank is. When we go home, I better not fucking see you back in Anbu. My brother is the bloody Jounin Commander. I _will_ make him strip you of all your Shodaime’s saggy balls rank if I do. You hear me.”

He pushes Hound away and swivels around to the team. “And for that sage damned matter, someone put a red sticker on his file. Why isn’t it already there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are near the end of this arc. Hold on guys! Ensui is ragey, Shikamaru is angsty. We will see more Shikamaru in the later chps. Please note that Sakura is an unreliable narrator.
> 
> There's a subtle hint of ShikaSaku here. I honestly wouldn't ever write ShikaSaku as a canon thing in this series, that's mostly because as a reader myself, I enjoy the non-romancey aspects more. I don't ever want to imply that someone who suffers from trauma and mental illnesses needs a romantic partner to depend on and sometimes I think writers like to write that in. It's easy and convenient and implies an unconditional support system. But I've never taken the easy way out in writing. As someone who is ace, I always wanted to be validated in my journey of recovery as someone who depended on friends and willpower. I think there needs to be more fics that don't have a romantic partner as their anchor. Also more fics where their romantic partners aren't supporting them almost entirely. People with mental illnesses (people like myself) should always have more than 1 pillar.
> 
>  **Of worldbuilding and what not**  
>  Since Narutoverse is pretty low tech and stuff, there aren't long-distance radios like we have here. So Tsunade didn't know immediately that Sakura's team disappeared. So the time delays and stuff imprecise timings are intentional. Usually the shinobi has to be missing for a longer period to be marked MIA then KIA. But since Sakura's team had quite literally vanished off the face of the earth, they were marked MIA quite quickly. (but my math is not the best, so if it doesn't quite add up, do let me know. I added a week or two here and there for "time delays" due to shinobis/summons having to run to report)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keeping to all japanese names as I have done with Kumo and Iwa for consistency.  
> Ta (or Ta no Kuni) is Rice country  
> Cha (or Cha no Kuni) is Tea country.  
> Shimo (or Shimo no Kuni) is Frost Country)
> 
> This chp is basically... Hatake Sakura X Badassery
> 
>  **Trigger warnings:** Dissociation, some 'blink and you'll miss it' dubious Kabuto things

Suggested Soundtrack: 

* * *

“They did so much work to you after you left us,” Kabuto sighs. “You don’t even remember that you were originally an Oto-nin.”

3006 didn’t bother to look up at them. She feels nothing, thinks nothing. If she becomes nothing, then she could vanish behind a mask, forget Konoha, forget Sensei, forget whatever that came before now.

Kabuto tilts her face up to his. Her muscles scream in pain. 

She feels nothing, she repeats to herself. 

“Oh Thirty-O-six. If you didn’t resist so much, we wouldn’t have to do all this to you,” he says.

He releases her face and she sags back into her restraints. 

“Doubt you’re going to get anything out of her,” she hears Xuebing say. 

“At least she’s coming along further than Gyeong-Su is with the other.”

Xuebing scoffs. “Gyeong-su isn’t an interrogation specialist. None of these Ta natives have the stomach for it.”

“And Cha natives do? _Like you?”_

3006 can see Xuebing fiddle with a syringe. Probably another needle to make her see things. She’s not sure if they’ve figured out that she isn’t as affected by the drugs as they want her to.

3006 knows Genma is dead. She killed him with her own hands. 

No, Genma isn’t dead. She’s not 3006, she’s Sakura. Hatake… _Haruno_ Sakura. After all this, the Hatakes… Papa isn’t dead, so she can’t be a Hatake. The Hatake… Sensei… it must be a lie?

“My clan is from Shimo, but yes. People like _me._ ”

Maybe all this is false. A genjutsu like Papa liked to use.

She holds onto her self-awareness like Papa taught her. Papa hadn’t been wrong. The things Papa had taught her had made her last. Or had it made her pain prolonged? 

Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa.

“... _Papa—”_ she murmurs involuntarily. 

“Hmm, looks like the father technique is working better than we thought.”

Xuebing crouches beside her. His face overlaps and Papa is there. “Tell me about this kekkai genkai ability you have. Why didn’t you tell Papa about it, hmmm?”

Papa isn’t real. He’s dead. Dead! Just like Genma.

She coughs, choking on her saliva. 

“Answer me, you don’t want Papa to be mad, do you?” He strokes her face the way he does just before he flies into a rage. Papa’s lips thin. 

Oh sage, Papa is so angry. 

She shakes her head. Papa’s training would get so much worse if she doesn’t… 

“D— n’t… h… ve… it,” she says through her numb, flaccid tongue. 

No… Papa would get angry if she gave up information. Oh no, her training is going to get harder now since she gave up some information. Her limbs shake involuntarily at the thought of extra training.

“She’s useless. Didn’t prisoner 837102 teach her too? Wouldn’t it better to just move her to phase two and focus on 837102?”

“She’s still a bit young for phase two. Orochimaru-sama would rather harvest some eggs first, and allow her to mature a bit more, than risk her dying prematurely.”

“I’ll get someone to prep her in that case, Kabuto-sama.”

Papa tosses his gloves onto the tray near her and strolls out of the room with Kabuto.

She’s alone now. Papa said that she should take every chance to escape when caught. She’s marked out all the possible escape routes…

“This should be the one Xuebing-sama said to extract. Three-zero-zero-six. Yep, this is the one,” says a shinobi to his partner as he strolls through the door.

“Shit, poor kid,” his partner mutters, his dark blue hair falling over his eyes as he bends over to check her. “Don’t worry girlie, we’ll make this fast.”

“Do you wanna die, Haruko?” the other hisses as his partner places his hand over her head and all she sees is a green glow.

 _“You can’t refer to them as people…”_ she hears, her consciousness is flickering. “... _you’re going to get me and my family killed…”_

✥.✥.✥

3006 wakes up on a trolley alone in the middle of the room, feeling oddly bereft. She’s not sure why. 

_ Orochimaru-sama would rather harvest some eggs first—  _

She touches her abdomen. It’s slightly raw, like medical chakra had been used on it. She is very familiar with that feeling. 

Papa— 

Sakura— She’s a double spy, originally Oto. No, how can that be? She doesn’t remember.

She’s not 3006… she’s Sakura… She killed Genma… but she dreamt of Genma comforting her.

She raises her hands to stare at them and realises that the restraints come off easily. Sakura shoves her confused thoughts away and holds tightly onto the things she thinks are the most important right now. She didn’t care if she was an experiment, if she was 3006, if she was Oto or Konoha. All of that didn’t matter right now.

She needed to get out, get away. She needs to get prisoner 837102 out.

She forces herself up. Papa had taught her the mask of indifference to fool her captors. All the things Papa had taught her had turned out useful. They said Papa had abused her, but how could it be abuse if it had been useful?

She finds boots in a closet and the same uniform the two shinobis had been wearing before they knocked her out.

Find a weapon. Find prisoner 837102. Release prisoner 837102. Break out. Run away.

In that order.

3006 takes down the next two shinobis she meets. Swiftly, just like… someone had taught her. One of them has a katana. 3006 straps it to her waist and ties the pouch of kunai to her stolen uniform.

She takes down the next patrol. Her arm is bleeding but it doesn’t affect her combat abilities. 3006 interrogates one of the medics she finds. 837102 is one floor up. 3006 finds the stairs. She cuts down a guard. She slits the throat of the next shinobi, checking each room until she finds 837102 strapped on a chair.

Dashing across the room, she takes down the assistant with a stab through the heart and once more across the throat and turns to face the interrogator.

“So, you escaped.” The man with long dark hair and eyes pale as the moon smiles.

3006 doesn’t care for chatting. Someone had told her that monologuing in battle only works when you’re trying to terrify the enemy. She only raises the katana.

_Sword meets the sun. Slow your breathing. Your left thigh needs to go down further. Forty-five degrees._

She schools her breath and shunshins forward. She spins her katana around, her left foot is digging into the ground to anchor herself. Xuebing meets her katana with a kunai with a clang. Her arms vibrate from the backlash, but her body has well memorised every movement of a kata she doesn’t consciously remember.

“ _Fascinating._ Not a single wastage of chakra.”

She deflects two of his kunai and sidesteps his next. He’s stronger than her, the only advantage she has over him right now is that he’s underestimating her.

She rolls again, avoiding his kick.

_Hand seals are only for controlling the way your chakra moves. If you are familiar with a jutsu, you can reduce the hand seals by mimicking your chakra movement in your coils._

She channels her chakra in a strangely familiar pattern as she leaps over his attempt at sweeping her down. He stabs into her left arm. 3006 barely registers the pain. She spits out a water bullet. It misses Xuebing, but he was never the target. Instead it cuts through 837102’s metal restraints and he surges forward slapping Xuebing on the neck, hoisting her into his arms.

Xuebing takes two steps towards them, his eyes filled with an emotion that 3006 doesn’t understand, and then he explodes into bloody bits before she can even raise her katana to defend. 

837102 flickers through the hallway. She thinks he knows where they are going. 3006 isn’t surprised that more people arrive to stop them. 837102 isn’t subtle. Things explode with a slap of 837102’s hand. She remembers someone talking about it.

Silver hair and rugged face.

She feels a part of her struggling to piece her memories together. She can’t right now. She knows if she tries, she might break down. There’s a time and place for everything. 

She shifts her weight, sliding off 837102’s arms. Her arms twitch as she raises them. 

_She is strong like the wind, hard like rock._

“Sakura-chan!” She hears 837102 call out as she flickers forward towards the newly arrived shinobis.

She throws her kunai, deflecting the other’s kunai in mid air a moment later. She hears the wind behind her, enough warning to drop into a sideways roll. The man’s back bursts into flames. 837102 signals rapidly to her to retreat. 

If they retreated now, 837102 wouldn’t be able to escape. It has to be now. 

She turns her back to him, facing the seven shinobis. 

Defeat shinobis, destroy wall on right. Stairs there. Two flights up.

She thrusts her blade. The one on the right catches her katana with a well-placed swing of a battleaxe. She flips back, narrowly missing the retaliatory swing from the one on her left. The wall on her right cracks under the battleaxe. 

“Are you crazy? It’s _three-zero-zero-six_. They want her alive and _unharmed_ ,” hisses the kunoichi right at the back that has a large tattoo across her face.

Unharmed. She has the upper hand.

3006 engages the one on her right again. This time she speeds her chakra up, catching the shinobi by surprise. Her katana slices through his kunai like tofu. She stabs him through the heart and slices across the throat, arterial blood spraying across her. He crumbles and she launches herself towards the next closest. 

He dances around her blade, fingers flying fast as he channels chakra for a jutsu. She doesn’t recognise the jutsu, but she recognises the snake and boar. Either an earth or lightning, she speeds up her chakra faster. A ninjutsu at close quarters— 

He collapses to the ground with her touching him. A senbon sticking one through his throat and another on a spot that she knows is a fatal tenketsu spot. 837102 had taken him out before he could complete the jutsu. 

She feels a surge of chakra on her left. Too close to dodge. 3006 raises her katana, channeling chakra into the metal. It cracks under the pressure of her chakra, but she manages to split the fireball with it.

She drops the now-shattered katana and picks up the battleaxe that’s almost as tall as her. The weight distribution is different from the kunai and katana. Different, but not difficult. 3006 rests on her back legs, chakra enhanced arms poised to attack and turns to the last three enemies. 

837102 had done a good job of watching her back, judging from the rest of the enemies dead on the ground. 

She swings, taking one out with pure luck. The battleaxe crashes into the wall on the right. 

The cracks on it deepen then crumble.

“Sage of six paths,” the tattooed kunoichi swears. “I thought Soichiro was the only idiot who could wield a masakari…”

3006 sidesteps the tattooed kunoichi’s kick easily in spite of the additional weight of the battleaxe. She takes the last two down with a quick swipe and swing. 

837102 sags, hands on his knees, breathing hard. “I— have words to say… like... no one picks up a new weapon... by _literally_ picking up a new weapon… but we should really get out first… before I… scream from frustration and the unfairness of prodigies…” Cleaning a senbon, he sticks it into his mouth and chews on it with a flip of his brown fringe from his face. 

“Hope that’s yours and not another poison specialist’s again,” 3006 says before she can understand why she says it.

“Sakura-chan! You wound me! I’d never! Plus they’re from my storage seal,” 837102 says, widening his eyes exaggeratedly.

“Hope you unsealed your brains too,” the words fall out of her mouth easily. 3006 doesn’t know why they seem familiar to her. She doesn’t have time for this, 3006 snaps her mouth shut and nods, pointing at the broken wall.

“Through there?” 837102 asks. All traces of laughter fading from his face. With her nod, he wipes a bit of his blood from his wounds and draws large, fancy words on the wall in blood. 

3006 doesn’t ask, but 837102 answers all the same. “A remote explosion,” he grins. “Took me ages to unravel their fuinjutsu seal on my chakra.” 

There probably isn’t a person in here that doesn't know they’re breaking out now, 3006 thinks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s probably muddy now or whether a) Sakura is an experiment b) whether Kizashi is a spy or c) Sakura was one of them. I can say that it’ll be revealed eventually, point is, I actually didn’t want to make it a huge point in my fic. This confusion is meant to be momentarily and a footnote. Yes, it will be clarified properly later in the fic instead in the notes. But since there’s a lot of questions about it. I’ll say outright that both Sakura and Kizashi was a loyal shinobi from start to beginning. No, she was not an experiment. They’re attempting to subvert and turn her.
> 
>  **Further Notes:** My alpha requested the arc of them to getting back to Konoha be lengthened... (due to him knowing what's planned) so here they'll probably get back in Konoha in 2 chps from now instead. So that it's not too much of a heartbreak? 
> 
> Also, as promised. Battleaxe Sakura. Next episode, more battleaxe Sakura smashing through things.
> 
> ~~Also, if anyone wants to offer being a permanent beta for this, lemme know! :)~~
> 
> Beta-ed by: Mirmallia! <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> List of countries is growing (do you want me to keep listing them?)  
> Yu (or Yu no Kuni) is Land of Hot Water  
> Hi (or Hi no Kuni) is Land of Fire
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings:** Depression, suicidal ideation? (but no attempt)

They finally make it out of the compound. In retrospect, Genma should have been a lot more subtle — painting their walls with explosive fuinjutsu in blood is hardly inconspicuous. Fuck them, Genma thinks. He’s allowed to be a little passive aggressive after what they’ve been through.

The compound explodes right behind him as he flares his chakra. Smug satisfaction rushes through him. An escape for the academy books. 

“Come on kid,” he grabs her arm. She’s almost out of chakra. He’s in terrible shape, but Sakura is a bloody mess — _literally_. Even if he excluded how she’s bathed in blood, the look on her face is disturbing. Genma had seen that look before on Kakashi’s face during a mission, the same mission that got him decommissioned from Anbu. The fact that Sakura, who has barely half of their experience, has that look, hurts. What would happen to Sakura after they return? Genma isn’t sure if Sakura could handle being decommissioned from the Active Shinobi Forces. 

But none of that matters right now. Her happiness can be factored in once she’s safe in Konoha.

He tugs her by the elbow and takes off into the trees. They’re close enough to Yu’s border. Sakura is almost catatonic. He had noticed it while they were making their escape. The few sentences that he had managed to get out of her had quickly shut her down.

He should probably talk to her, Genma remembers how Inoichi had advised him on helping Kakashi through his breakdowns. He had never been good at this. Raidou had been the one who dealt with these kinds of things - one who was actually trained to. 

“Listen kid,” he starts. “You did great in there. We both made it out, Kakashi would be proud.” 

His thoughts are a mess. Genma hadn’t managed to keep track of the length of time they had been in there, not to mention Sakura had been separated from him for much of that period. 

Can he protect her if they manage to return? What had they done to her when she was apart from him?

_Is she a spy, a traitor?_

He chews the senbon, taking comfort in the nip of the senbon poking into his inside of his cheeks. 

If she’s a spy and traitor…

Genma swallows dryly, forcing himself to focus on their escape from this hellhole of a country. They run into the evening, killing their pursuit and any patrols they come across. 

_“Welcome home Thirty-O-six, it’s been awhile.”_

It’s also very possible that Kabuto had been playing with his mind. Should he even take a traitor’s word as the truth? Genma knows that’s a very resounding ‘no’, yet the possibility of it being true, no matter how infinitesimal, is there. _If_ she’s a traitor, a spy, a _double agent,_ then it’s better for him to kill her here and let her die as Kakashi’s surrogate daughter. It will kill Kakashi to find out that she’s a traitor. Genma cannot even think of a scenario where Kakashi would volunteer to kill her even, with the traitor label on it, and when it comes down to it, Kakashi will always be more important to him than Sakura.

Genma keeps up the one-sided conversation, repeating himself until his voice is hoarse. Sakura never replies. 

“We’re almost home, Sakura-chan,” Genma says. 

They crossed Yu’s border yesterday. They’re close enough. Yu isn’t large enough for them to take more than three days to across into Hi. Genma knows almost every outpost along the borders. As Anbu, he had done plenty of patrols from outpost to outpost. They will, without a shadow of doubt, meet a Konoha patrol. 

Genma glances at Sakura as they traverse through the forest. He has to decide whether Sakura is a threat or not before they enter Hi. It would be foolish to trust a confirmed traitor; it would be foolish to consider it.

Genma can see heartbreak on Kakashi’s face. 

“Sakura-chan…”

Sakura turns to him. Her face is still emotionless. The Sakura he knew had always the edge of insecurity, the Sakura he knew had grit and determination that fought with every challenge they threw at her. 

_Traitor or loyal?_

“We should take a break,” Genma says instead. “We’re almost halfway to the border and we’ve been running the entire time.”

He stops on by a tree. The trees in Yu’s forests aren’t big like Hi’s, so they make do by sleeping on the ground.

Sakura lays beside him, trusting him to take the first watch. 

Genma fingers his senbon. ‘Just a plunge through the tenketsu on her neck,’ his mind whispers. Painless. Genma knows. He’s done it countless of times during his assassination missions. She won’t even feel it. 

She shuffles a little in her sleep, hand reaching out to grip the loose end of his shirt. 

_Traitor or loyal?_

Genma presses the heel of his right palm to his eyes, left hand clutching his senbon so tightly that his knuckles are white.

If he followed protocol, calculated the probability- 

He doesn't need to reconsider it. Genma knows what protocols would demand of him. Sakura had been left too long alone with the enemies. The likelihood of being a sleeper or a traitor is far too high. It could be months in T&I for her. Years, or like Anko— _never released._

Genma pulls out a kunai. He looks down at her. It would be better for her to die as a loyal Konoha shinobi here and now than for him to bring her home and drag it out before ultimately being executed. 

“Fuck,” he breathes. His hand shakes as he loops a finger into its handle. 

He can’t make this decision. He’s too emotionally compromised. 

“Hilt, I’ll kill her. Blade, I’ll spare her,” he says. He swings the kunai and loosens it into the air. It flies in a curve. Genma can hear it slicing through the air, the leaves fluttering from the trees in the light breeze. 

“Sage of six paths, please, _please._ ”

The moonlight reflects off its matte metal. It spins as it falls. Genma holds his breath, a frisson of fear scuttles down his spine. Then quietly, it hits the ground, blade first and sinking into the earth.

Relief escapes his lungs in a loud exhale. Genma laughs a single mirthless laugh. 

_Fate has decided,_ he thinks. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he murmurs, carding her hair with his fingers. 

✥.✥.✥

Their escape goes well. They made good time to the border of Yu. 837102 tells her that they will hit Hi’s borders by tomorrow. He pushes them on harder. 3006 doesn’t complain. She understands why. She forces herself onwards even when all her body wants is to sleep.

She’s so tired that she almost misses their pursuers emerging from the trees.

“My my my, what fast little buggers you are,” the shinobi with skin too dark to be anything but Kumo says. 

837102 doesn’t wait for him to finish talking. He leaps, senbon spraying from his mouth. The senbons explode on contact.

3006 pulls her axe from her temporary carrier, catching the other shinobi’s kunai on the handle. Ducking his double kick, she sweeps her axe and slices his leg off. He falls with a scream. 

One down, six to go.

Beside her, she can hear 837102 yell ‘ _kai’_ every few seconds followed by an explosion of sorts. She stares back at the six and grits her teeth. 

She has to get 837102 back home. 

The shinobis with Oto headbands charge. Mustering her chakra, she swings her axe with precise chakra enhancement - fast and heavy, like the wind and rock. The hit lands in a barrage of bones and flesh mixed with earth cracking beneath her axe. 

Even with chakra, she can see dots flicker across her vision. 

3006 forces herself to focus. She can’t use any jutsu, she’s running too low, but channelling it doesn’t use any. She bends back, narrowly missing a wind cutter jutsu. 

837102 had taken four down. Her eyes widen.

“Genma!” the words leave her mouth before she can think as she watches Genma drop to the ground unmoving.

Heat burns down her neck. A fist of fear and panic punches through her. Her vision blurs and she blacks out.

“Sakura-chan…” she hears him wheeze. 3006 wakes up to a landscape rescaped. Large spikes of earth had seemed to swallow up the rest of the enemy shinobis. 

837102 blinks at her with blood trickling down his face.

“Are you okay?” he asks but doesn’t move from his spot on the ground.

She nods. 

“Can you stand?”

She nods.

“You… have to empty their pockets…” 

She obeys his instructions and turns over as many dead shinobi as she can, pocketing their ration bars and chakra pills. 

“Keep it…” he says when she returns to him and offers him.

He takes her hand and draws a seal on her wrist. “Now you can seal your axe in there.” He smiles wryly at her and shows her how to seal and unseal. “You have… to continue… Have to go home… Kakashi will be waiting for you,” Genma continues in a voice that she cannot decipher. 

She shakes her head.

“Leave me… Sakura…-chan…” 

She shakes her head. 

He smiles softly at her. “I’m… too heavy… for you to carry… You have to… continue home… To Konoha…”

The man that taught her told her to never leave a teammate behind. She bites down on a chakra pill and slings Genma across her shoulders. His weight presses the air out of her lungs, but she channels what chakra she has left and continues down south.

“Sakura-chan… It’ll be faster if you leave me…”

“You have… to get home… Kakashi is waiting for you…”

“I won’t leave you!” 3006 yells back. “You can’t make me.”

“I have… a collapsed lung… You can’t bring me… back in time to save me…”

“No.”

“Sakura—”

“No.”

She channels chakra into her legs. She has to get him back in time. She has to be faster…

✥.✥.✥

It’s another day, another week. He stares at the ceiling. He sent his ninken back after they had tried to push him out of bed. Perhaps it had been a bad idea. Kakashi lets exhaustion drag him back into its embrace. 

If he just stops breathing, stops waking...

“Kakashi?” Kakashi hears Raidou as he pounds on the door. “Kakashi, I swear to every saggy ball that the four Hokages and Sage have, that if you don’t open the door…”

He can’t find it in himself to care. He doesn’t need precious people, doesn’t want any more of them to die. Kakashi is a curse. He killed his father, his teammates, his sensei, his _heir_.

He’ll lie here until his friends, and the world forget him. Maybe then, he’ll just stop breathing one day. Let sleep take him away and never wake. 

“ _Fuck._ Kakashi!” 

Kakashi blinks, languidly looking back at Raidou who stares down from over his bed. 

“Tenzo! Give me a hand here! Gai, go get us some food. Okayu or something.”

“Leave me alone.” Kakashi pushes them away with less strength than he thought he had.

Raidou bats his hands off and hauls him up. They drag him to the bathroom where Raidou fills the bathtub with water. 

“Senpai… why do you let yourself become like this… You’re so filthy…” Tenzo flutters around him then sighs. “There’s no saving these clothes…” Quickly with a kunai, he slices the clothes off and scrubs his skin hard until it’s red and dumps water over his head before scrubbing again. 

“Here.” Raidou thrusts a towel into his face. “Scrub your bits.”

Raidou forces it into his hand when Kakashi doesn’t move to take it. “Do you think Sakura-chan would want you like this?” Raidou says when he doesn’t move. “Or Genma?”

Kakashi looks down at the towel. “You should have left me then,” he says hoarsely.

“We told you before and I’ll tell you as many times again.” Raidou crouches to his eye level, ignoring the soap suds dampening his pants. “We are not going anywhere, Hatake Kakashi. Never.”

He motions to the towel in Kakashi’s hand. “I’m not above scrubbing your bits, but I will promise you it won’t be pleasant.”

Kakashi bends over and scrubs himself and lets himself be bullied into the tub for a soak. From his position in the tub, Kakashi could see her myriad of bath salts on the bathroom shelves. Sakura had been thrilled that there was a tub to soak when they first moved in. Through the bits that she was willing to talk about, Kakashi realised that her baths back then consisted of almost freezing water. He had promised himself then that there would never be a lack of hot water for her baths. He had teased about her being wrinkled like a raisin even before she would grow old from the length of time she spent in the bathtub. 

He pulls himself out before five minutes are even up. 

Someone had changed his bedsheets while he had been in the bathroom, probably Gai seeing that Raidou and Tenzo had been in the bathroom with him. There is okayu on the table when Raidou pushes him into the kitchen.

“Eat,” Tenzo says, handing him a spoon.

Kakashi stares down at the rice gruel and takes a mouthful. It tastes like sand. 

“Why don’t you just leave?” he asks quietly to the three of them. Can’t they see he’s doing it for their sakes? Kakashi slumps in his chair, too tired to even sit up. 

“Why do you think we’ll leave?” Tenzo takes a seat opposite him. “You’re my senpai. I’m not going to just—”

“Don’t you get it? You’re next.”

“I’m… next?” Tenzo says puzzled and glances at Raidou and Gai. 

“You’re next to die.” Kakashi stubbornly glares into the okayu. “I’m a blight, a curse. Everyone close to me has died. Otou-san, Obito, Minato-sensei, Sakura-chan… Genma. Don’t you get it? I _killed_ them.”

“Senpai…” Tenzo starts to say and stops when Gai pulls Kakashi into a big hug.

“I’m still alive. You are not a blight. You are not a curse, you did not kill them. You will not kill me. You did not kill them. I’m still alive. You are not a blight. You are not a curse, you did not kill them. You did not kill them, you will not kill me,” Gai says. 

Kakashi’s shoulders shake, his lungs shudder, a strangled gasp escapes him. The spoon falls from his hand as he grips Gai’s vest. 

Raidou reaches out and squeezes his shoulder. “ _We_ are still alive,” Raidou adds. 

“We are not leaving you, Senpai.”

✥.✥.✥

3006 is exhausted. They had finished the last ration bar two days ago. Contrary to what 837102 said, they hadn’t met into any patrols. There had been no time, while outposts generally had a medic-nin, there was no guarantee of it. 3006 didn’t want to leave it to chance so she ran as fast as she could back to Konoha.

Through the trees, across the mountains.

“Sakura-chan… You have to leave me…”

3006 thinks she’s on the brink of chakra exhaustion. She should stop. She needs to rest. Extreme chakra exhaustion can cause organ failure. She doesn’t remember where she learnt it from. She should stop, but she can’t.

“Have to... keep going south... Kakashi... is waiting... for you,” 837102 had said often, now he’s barely awake anymore. She can’t remember the last time he spoke. He’s been deadly still for too long now.

 _Not dead,_ she repeats to herself. She has to bring 837102 back, she can’t remember why, except that it’s important.

He’s not dead. _Not yet._

She runs and runs, across the rivers and hills. The trees begin to grow in size, the green deepens. Her lungs burn, her muscles scream with each step she takes. She keeps running.

“State your—”

“Oh fuck! Is that Kakashi’s heir?” 

“Why is she carrying a corpse?”

“Sa...-cha...!”

Finally, she lets the air escape her chest, and exhaustion takes her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, before people start screaming... **I tagged correctly...** Which I guess "choose not to use archive warnings" might be just as bad... But no... no one died.. dying.. dies... something. Fudgey dudly. Ho Hum.
> 
> *cough* Before anyone kills me... *cough* Genma got really dark there by himself. There wasn't supposed to be THAT much of him. Erm, a lot less of him contemplating killing Sakura and alot more of Sakura carrying Genma. But it wrote itself. I'm not 100% pleased with this chp, well. I just wanted to get over this chp. It had a lot hard bits to write. I'd like to stay the worse is over, except I'd be lying. So please, I present to you... Morino Ibiki in the next chp. Please hold onto your hearts and tissue boxes, it'll be rough. 
> 
> (Also Papa!Kakashi in next chp)
> 
> Beta-ed by: Mirmallia and Shadow-haunt-angels


	8. Chapter 8

_Kakashi-sensei,_

_This letter comes a few months late. I was unable to convince Ero-sennin to return for_

Kakashi can’t make out the words for it. There are tear stains blotching all over the letter, but he can guess the words.

___ra’s funer__l. In the end, I was never of use to her as a friend or teammate. Can’t believe that Ero-sennin had kept her disappearance a secret. Can’t believe he tried to keep her KIA status from me. If I had known, I could have joined you searching for her. I could have done **something,** instead of being hidden away from the rest of the world in this sage forsaken place. I wanted to be powerful to protect my friends. What is the point of being powerful if I can’t be there? _

_\- Naruto_

Kakashi stares at the letter, finally releasing the breath he had been unintentionally holding. Naruto hadn’t blamed him. That he had been here and hadn’t been able to do anything. 

He clenches his fist and forces himself to relax. Kakashi lifts his eyes from the table to the wall of weapons. Sakura’s training bokken is on the rack, right above her graduation katana. He remembers drawing in the seals on its nakago before letting the swordsmith hammer in the handle. 

What’s the point of being _here_ when he hadn’t been able to do anything?

He slumps in his chair. It’s been more than weeks since Sakura’s funeral. At least he’s somewhat taking care of himself, even if it means sleeping in the living room. It hurts too much to walk past her empty room and remember all that it had been.

Kakashi slides the window open and slides down the side of the building, slowly trudges to the memorial stone. 

_Haruno Sakura  
Shiranui Genma_

His lungs flagged for a moment, clenching so tightly that Kakashi fought to not bend over and pass out. It is not his fault that they died. He is not a curse.

“Maa, Sakura-chan… Genma…” he whispers to the dark winter sky, watching the wisps of smoke escape his mouth like proof that he existed. He bends his head, leaning against the memorial stone. “What am I going to do without you two.”

The night deepens, the stars studding in the inky sky above. Kakashi stands there, staring at their names until the cold seeped into his winter uniform and Tenzo comes looking for him.

“Senpai,” Tenzo says. 

“I know,” Kakashi rasps. “It’s not my fault.”

“But you can’t help but feel it is,” Tenzo says the words that Kakashi hadn’t voiced. “My therapist… says it’s called survivor guilt. You know how it is...” 

He shrugs seemingly attempting to make his words casual, but Kakashi knows his words are anything but that. His therapist had said something similar too. That just because people handle their experiences differently, doesn’t invalidate theirs or his. 

“Like my therapist said. Shit happens, then we stand and continue walking,” Kakashi repeats what his therapist had said. 

Tenzo laughs. “Your therapist is so potty-mouthed.”

“You say it like yours isn’t.”

“Point taken.” Tenzo looks down at the names. He opens and closes his mouth a few times. 

“Senpai…” he finally says. The tone of his voice is so peculiar that Kakashi turns to properly look at him instead of pretending he isn’t really paying attention. 

“Senpai…” Tenzo clenches his hands. “Don’t leave me too.”

“I’m _not_ suicidal.”

“There’s more than one way of leaving a person, Senpai.” He shuffles his feet uneasily. “You are kind, you are strong, you care a lot. I, _we_ need you.”

Kakashi doesn’t reply to Tenzo's words. He doesn’t know how. 

Instead he just says, “Let’s go, my balls are shrivelling in this cold.” 

✥.✥.✥

3006 is cold when she wakes up - a white ceiling and on a trolley and she can’t help the rise of panic. 

_Have to... keep going south... Kakashi... is waiting... for you_

She pushes herself up, hands flailing to the people around her. She won’t let them take her again. 

Get the other prisoner, break out, keep going south.

“Haruno Sakura! You’re safe!” one of the people in white shouts.

She knows that’s a lie. She punches one of them, she doesn’t have enough chakra to enhance it, but it sends them skidding across the room. 

“Someone get—” 

Her ears buzz as she ducks a green glowing hand. She sweeps one of them off and vaults over another, swiping a scalpel from a nearby tray. She slips through another’s legs and pushes herself off, wrapping her arm around his neck. 

“Where is 837102!” she snarls. 

“837102? Who is 837102?”

Her stomach hurts, her limbs hurt but all that is secondary to her mission. She needs—

“Calm down Sakura-chan… Remember me? It’s Raidou,” the brunet says as he crouches to her eye level. “You are in Konoha now. You are in the Konoha hospital headquarters, being treated for your injuries. You are safe.”

Her eyes track the facial scarring across the left side of brunet’s face. The brunet looks like the strongest among all the six in the room. She will have to take him out first or stall him long enough for him to escape. No window so— 

“Sakura-chan,” he calls out to her again when she starts tracking all the exits that she could use.

“Where is 837102?” she asks again. She doesn’t think they would tell her. They had separated them the last time, it’s likely they would do the same this time. 

“Who is 837102?” he says. His body tensed at her question and she readies herself for a fight. 

No weapons, no proper footwear, no armor. 

“837102?”

“Did she arrive with someone else?” he asks, his brown eyes not leaving her. “We’ll find out okay, Sakura-chan? Just give us a moment to find out where 837102 is.”

“No one came with her,” one of the people behind him says as he checks the file. “The anbu said—” 

There’s a flash of green on her right and her hand jerks. The scalpels goes deep into her hostage’s neck. Her hands loosen and the brunet pulls her hostage away. 3006 dashes to her right. 

Green light is bad. She needs to get out of her before they catch her again. 

The brunet loops his arms around her, forcing her arms to her sides. Holding her close to him, he grips her wrist tightly. “Shhh, it’s okay Sakura-chan. You’re safe. You’re okay, Sakura-chan,” he murmurs to her. She fights his grip, but he’s far too strong for her. 

“837102? Where’s 837102?”

“I’m sorry Sakura-chan, you are the only one. _Sage_ , we thought we lost you.”

“837102? Where’s 837102?” she asks again. Her eyes are strangely hot and there is hot liquid dripping down her face. She struggles in his hold. 

“I have you, Sakura-chan. You are in Konoha, you are safe.”

She catches the glimpse of a green lit hand rushing to her face. She fights the brunet’s hold hard with a scream. 

“No, no, no! 837— GENMA!” And like a familiar but unwanted routine, her vision turns black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I apologise for the wait and the length. I'm sorry for a cliffhanger, I was planning to write more and have a resolution about Genma. No Genma isn't dead. He won't be, no one is going to die. 
> 
> But as my chronic illness flared up, and a really bad one too, I'll be taking a fairly prolonged break to properly recover so I posted what I had written. Probably about 3 months or so. I hope you'll be patient with me. Thank you.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit that when I started writing this sequel, I never planned for it to be dark. Angsty, yes, but not dark. No torture or what not. Yet, at chp 9, I’m surprised how far this rabbit hole has led me astray. Lots of people have told me that no plans survive contact and it’s common to adjust the plot. But that’s actually never really happened to me except this fic and bones beneath her feet. Which, for me, readjusting the plot YET AGAIN, is weird. I’m too far into this rabbit hole to adjust for the darkness of this fic. I hope you all will pardon me for writing such a dark sequel. I… will endeavour to lighten it. 
> 
> **Trigger Warnings:** Mental breakdown

When 3006 wakes up again, it’s to another white ceiling, though fortunately it’s not a trolley this time but an actual bed. There are bandages around her arms, chest and feet. She hadn’t woken up in a bed before. It had either been on a cold concrete floor in a cell or on a trolley. Curious, she pokes them. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A boy reaches out and gently holds her wrist until she drops it back onto the bed. “They said you were quite badly injured.”

She startles. So lost in her thoughts that she had not noticed him sitting in the corner or maybe it had been the trick of the shadows that had hidden him. 3006 isn’t sure and honestly, she doesn’t care. She’s too exhausted, emotionally and physically. 

“You are in Konoha, you are safe, Genma-san is safe. Genma-san is still undergoing emergency surgery and won’t be out for another few hours. But I can bring you to see his surgery.” 

She should recognise him because there is something about him that puts her instantly at peace. 3006 doesn’t. His name is a blur and the words that she thinks she should say to him are missing. 

“Raidou-senpai went to check why they hadn’t put Genma-san and you in the same operating theatre. It’s ridiculous.” He purses his thin lips, dark bags frame his eyes. His dark eyes seem to bore into her that made her feel ashamed. 

“Sakura-chan…” His words seem to resound painfully in her chest. “We thought you were dead. _Sage,_ I mourned for you.” He seems to reach out for her and stops just short of touching her face, instead he overtly and slowly puts his hand in hers, squeezing it almost tenderly. 

“Where is 837102?” she rasps. 

“You don’t recognise me, do you?” He runs a seemingly tired hand over his forehead and a murmur that she can’t quite make out. 

His shoulders slump. 3006 isn’t sure why she itches to reach out to him and comfort him - _like he had done for her._

“I’m Shikamaru,” he says as though that word is supposed to mean something to her. 

It doesn’t. She needs to escape this place, find 837102, keep going south, find Kakashi. She turns from the spiky-haired teenager, her wrist is still locked solidly in his hand and it doesn't seem like he is going to release it any time soon. Exhausted, she decides her energy is better wasted on taking a nap. Nothing she can do now will help. Just a little nap, until the teenager goes away, she decides.

✥.✥.✥

“Repeat it to me again on why Genma was separated from Sakura,” Raidou says to the nurse.

“Shiranui had a collapsed lung with a very bad infection. In order to treat him, he had to be placed in a specially disinfected room so that the medic could cut him open and cut away the bad parts. Unfortunately Haruno—”

“ _Hatake.”_

“ _Hatake_ ,” the nurse pauses. “Hatake Sakura, required her bones to be rebroken and reset, along with many other things. She had been poisoned, on top of chakra pill poisoning. Which made the seals required for her treatment counter the seals required for Shiranui.”

“Bullshit.” Raidou knew that his Anbu team had gone through similar treatments. It’s protocol for all teams to be treated in the same room. He isn’t a medic like Tenzo but he knows fuinjutsu. The fuinjutsu required for those treatments… 

‘What is he doing?’ he mutters to himself and pinches his nose bridge. He _knows_ what the nurse means. Yes, it was unacceptable. Yes, it went against protocol. But they had all been for the right reasons. There is nothing wrong with their judgement. It might have made Sakura’s awakening a bit more traumatic, but that had been why he had been called in the moment her treatment started. They had anticipated this and had tried to mitigate it. 

“I’m sorry, Yuuichi,” he says. 

“It’s okay.” He pats Raidou on his arm. “It wasn’t ideal.” 

“Not ideal, but I’ll take over from here, Ono-san,” Ibiki says as he appears from behind. 

“Why are you here?” Raidou bristles.

“Relax. Hatake-kun and Shiranui-kun are fine. Ono-san reported dissonance in her psyche. Yamanaka-sama would be joining us too and see if we can stabilize her.”

Raidou turns his glare to Yuuichi. “Stabilise her or _stabilise_ her, because we both know what _that_ means.” 

“I’m just the nurse in charge of her,” Yuuichi splutters. “I did everything by protocol.” He straightens his uniform and stares evenly back at Raidou. 

“Protocol indicates that you should inform her shishou. I noticed you haven’t done it.”

Raidou grits his teeth knowing that Ibiki had a good point. He hadn’t wanted to inform Kakashi yet. Not with how precarious Genma’s situation was and with Sakura’s… 

Raidou knew how quickly things could change for either of them. With how long they had been missing, what they could have had suffered in the enemies hands - things could have changed. Raidou remembered what happened to Tonbo and how they had to eventually remove his eyes to prevent him from unconsciously sending information back. At least Tonbo had been a jounin by then, with enough skills to make up for being blind even if he was later demoted to chuunin and would never be able to become a jounin again. 

Sakura wouldn’t be able to bounce back. Raidou didn’t have faith in that. 

Ibiki brushes past him, his coat flapping behind him. Sliding the door open, Ibiki tilts his head at Raidou, the shadows intensified the scars across his face momentarily and then the door slides shut with a loud thud.

Raidou swallows dryly. He thinks of Tonbo, he thinks of the time he too had been captured. 

He can’t, _shouldn’t,_ put it off any longer. 

Forcing himself to take slow long breaths, Raidou turns away, striding down the hallway to find Kakashi. 

✥.✥.✥

3006 wakes to yet another white ceiling. The same white ceiling too, she sluggishly registers. The same dark spiky-haired boy with dark brown eyes is still there. 

“What are you doing here, Ibiki?” the boy grumbles.

“We need a report and likely to stabilise her,” a voice on her left answers. 3006 doesn’t care to see who it is. She isn’t supposed to be here. She needs to escape, find 837102, keep going south, find Kakashi. 

“Report, shinobi,” a deep voice says on her left. 

Thoughts scramble in her head, seeming to push an odd reflexive action to the front of her mind. “Set off on a mission on the fourteen of July, we picked up our clients at— at—” She stops, lungs heaving. “Fight. Gen— 837— Gen—” 

“Gen—” She shudders, arms flailing and the dark spiky-haired boy holds onto her wrist. 

“You are in Konoha, you are safe, Genma-san is safe,” he tells her slowly.

“Genma, what happened to Genma,” the man on her left asks. 

There are scars across his face, he too looks familiar. She wonders if she saw him in the base. Vaguely, she remembers scarface. She killed scarface. She wonders if he came back to life too.

“Shinobi, finish the report,” the scarred man orders. 

“He—” She takes a quivering breath. “ _Died._ Over and over again. I killed him. He died. Over and over again. Died. _Died._ ” She stops, laughing until her diaphragm hurts even when the spiky-haired boy clenches his hand around her wrist. 

“Genma is alive, Sakura. Genma is safe,” he repeats it like it’s supposed to mean something.

“He came back. How?” she whispers and as soon as she says that she chokes. “ _Papa._ Papa’s alive. He...”

Belatedly, she turns to the spiky-haired boy. She needs to run. 

Escape. Find— Find— 

She lunges at the spiky-haired boy, ripping her wrist from his grip. She steals a kunai from his pouch and whips around to jump through the door, but before she can do that, her body freezes and then a large man covers her eyes. 

“ _Sleep,”_ the voice commands.

No, not again, she thinks as her body falls forward and darkness claims her.

✥.✥.✥

It’s not to the same ceiling 3006 wakes up to. The table and chains is new. She jerks her hands, the chains jingle with it. At least it’s not a metal chair or table, she thinks.

The air is cold and the room smells a bit stale, with a biting undercurrent of disinfectants underlining it that she’s gotten familiar with in the base. Always accompanied by scalpels and syringes, the thought flashes through her head before she even consciously registers it. 

The sound of the glass on metal, the sound of footsteps.

Her body shivers. The footsteps seem to approach the door and for a brief instant, she sees a man with long black hair and icy white eyes. 

“Sakura-chan,” the man greets and the vision is gone. There are cups of tea in his hands. The man is blond with sea-green eyes and almost no pupils and she knows this man.

“I brought tea. I thought it might be cold in the room and you hadn’t had anything to drink in a while.” He sips both cups and puts it in front of her. She eyes them; hand creeping to one and when Inoichi doesn’t pull it away, she snatches it, cupping it tightly between her hands. The warmth grounds her even if she doesn’t drink it. Inoichi might have drunk from both cups as a gesture to prove they are not poisoned but she knows better.

Whatever poison is in these cups is something that Inoichi is likely to be immune to.

“Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here.” He pulls out a small folder and flips through the papers. “Ibiki has done the preliminary assessment and have determined that where you were would pose an issue to you and Konoha’s well-being.” Inoichi’s face tightens as he reads the paper. 

“I’m going to mindwalk you for any hidden traps and we’ll go from there. This will feel a bit peculiar, like a presence at the back of your head. As you will be out during this duration, please adjust yourself in a comfortable position.” He raises his hands, there’s a pressure in her head and everything darkens.

‘ _Not again,’_ she swears. 

_There is the dripping of water from where down the hallway. She’s not sure if she can even call it a hallway. Sakura has been there for so long that she isn’t sure how long she’s been here. At least four feedings since she last saw Genma and that could be anything from a day to four days or more. She hears screaming from one of the closed doors and she forces herself to breathe through it._

_If she fails this test then Papa would be angry. She would get more punishment._

_No. That's not right. Papa is dead. She had double-checked that day in the morgue, checked the dots on his skin._

No, not again.

_Gyeong-su drags Sakura through the hallways. As the first one out, Sakura attempted to count the turns they made and keep a keen eye out for a possible escape route. Sensei hadn’t taught her this yet and Papa…_

_All these hallways and rooms she went past seemed like what Papa’s practice genjutsu had been. Perhaps everything had been a dream and that this had been one long genjutsu and she would wake up on the table with Papa looking down at her._

_She twists her chakra the way Iruka-sensei had taught them to break genjutsu then tries the way Papa had taught her. Nothing snaps. There is still an ache across her back, her ankle still twinges with each step Gyeong-su tugs her along._

_This is real._

_After thirty minutes of walking, they finally stop at a small dingy door. Sakura can smell the stench of faeces and urine even before they enter and it’s worse when he drags her in and pushes her into a cell._

_Sakura stumbles in, stretching a hand out to stop herself from falling forward. The cell they put her in is barely longer than her height. It reminds her of the cages that cousin Yuya rears her chickens in. Except she is the chicken, just like the boy in the cell next to her._

Help me.

_Sakura coughs, trying to get the water out of her lungs. She coughs until a metallic taste fills her mouth and still nothing comes out._

_"You're okay, Sakura-chan," the voice repeats. He’s warm, the weight of his arms around her comforts her. She knows this person._

_Hands reaching up to where the face might be, he grabs her hands and puts them on his face. “It’s Raidou,” the voice says. “Oh sage, we thought we lost you too.”_

_She feels the familiar puckered skin across his nose, her limbs tremble as she takes a long whiff of his vest. It’s him. Her nose and touch tells her that, she should be able to trust it._

_But she can’t._

_She wants to know. Raidou is safety and familial love. He’s the uncle that she could always count on._

_What happened, what happened, what happened?_

_‘Tell me! Someone tell me something!’ she wants to scream even as Raidou passes her to another set of warm arms and yet another familiar smell._

_She doesn’t._

_“Where’s Genma?” she asks instead._

_“Oh Sakura-chan,” Yamato murmurs. “I’m so sorry. Genma’s gone.”_

I killed him.

_She flashes forward, stabbing her kunai up into his heart and another across the throat and stops. Eyes widening as she takes in the man she had just killed._

_He gurgles, hands gripping his throat._

_“Genma! No, no, no!”_

I killed him again. Genma died. _Died._ He’s not Genma anymore. He is a husk. He is 837102. 

“Sakura-chan, it’s not real. Wake up. Sakura-chan.”

She blinks. Inoichi is hugging her tightly, his bare forehead pressed against hers. “I killed him. He’s dead.”

“No, Sakura-chan, he’s still alive. Genma is alive. You didn’t kill him. I’ll take you to see him after this, okay?” He brushes her hair from her face.

“He is dead.” She schools a shaky breath. “Does Papa know I got caught and that I’m here?”

“Sakura-chan, Kizashi is dead. He’s been dead for the last two years.” 

“No. I saw him. I counted his moles and scars— He can’t be dead.” 

Inoichi holds her face to him even as she tries to squirm from him, she feels his chakra wash over her. “Sakura-chan, Kizashi has been dead for two years. Try to recall your visit to the morgue.”

“No, no, _no_.” 

He reaches over to the folder and pulls out a certificate. A death certificate signed by her, with her own chakra imprint too. 

“I don’t remember signing this. This is a lie.” She pushes Inoichi away and tries to stand. The chains clink, tugging her back to the table. “All this is a lie. This is not Konoha, you are not Inoichi.” 

She jerks at the chains. “LIE! PAPA!” She jerks her hands, ignoring how the leather restraints have cut through her bandages and into her skin. Her shoulders tremble, lungs muscling for air that she can’t seem to breathe in. “All this is a lie. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up—” 

‘Inoichi’ presses a green-lit hand on her head and she succumbs to him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry to bring bad news and good news. Keeping this short.
> 
> The Good news, you'll likely see a bump of chp updates.  
> The bad news, is that if this work isn't completed by Mar, it'll be on an indefinite hiatus.
> 
> If you want the longer version, you can read the note here: [ https://orlha.tumblr.com/post/627722081899069440/due-to-some-circumstances-it-seems-like-ill-be](https://orlha.tumblr.com/post/627722081899069440/due-to-some-circumstances-it-seems-like-ill-be)
> 
> Also other notes: Basically Sakura got genjutsu-ed all the way through where she has difficulty determining things. She's an very unreliable narrator at the moment.
> 
> Beta-ed by: Mirmallia and Shadow-haunt-angels


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** lots of emotions in this chp. Prepare your hearts and tissue boxes!
> 
> Cause here comes................................
> 
> you'll see.

Kakashi looks down at the memorial stone, hands tucked into the pockets of his pants. The air is still and heavy, almost as though the sky is holding its breath. He sets a hand on the cold stone.

What does it say when his loved ones now no longer occupy just one side of the memorial stone?

He thinks of all the things he wanted to say when they were alive. All the time he spent it here could have been spent on them. If he had spent more time training Sakura…

Kakashi sighs heavily and looks up at the evergreen Hashirama trees that belied the biting winter chill settling in Konoha. 

‘ _It’s not my fault,’_ he tells himself. He has to forgive himself for the imaginary transgressions he had done to them. 

It wasn’t his fault that Rin had genjutsu-ed him into thinking that she was an enemy-nin. It wasn’t his fault that Minato-sensei had sacrificed himself to seal the kyuubi. It wasn’t his fault that Sakura and Genma had perished on a mission.

It is the fact of life for a shinobi. 

He is not a curse.

“I am not a curse.” He clenches his fist. “I am strong.”

_Uchiha Obito  
Nohara Rin  
Uzumaki Kushina  
Namikaze Minato  
Shiranui Genma  
Haruno Sakura_

Kakashi thinks of the lonely grave in the civilian graveyard.

_Hatake Sakumo_

Warm hands on his head, low pitched rumbles, love, _home_.

“I loved you. All of you.” He tucks his trembling hand into his pocket. “And now I release you.”

It’s time for him to stop wasting time on thinking of the things that he should have said and done and actually doing it.

“ _Sayonara.”_

Kakashi turns and leaves, not once looking back. 

It’s already February. It would be almost seven months since he last saw Sakura and Genma. Kakashi forces himself to not think of them. He meanders down the streets. He stops at a tempura shop, picking up an early lunch. Just his portion this time. The sun is high in the sky by the time he finally makes it back to his apartment. Maybe it’s time to consider moving. The apartment is too large for him now. 

“I’m home,” he calls out. Kakashi toes his sandals off, turning up the heating seal as he walks past it. Pakkun jumps off the doggy pile on the couch and pads up to him.

“All good, boss?” Pakkun asks, leaping onto the shoe cabinet and Kakashi’s shoulder.

“All good,” he tells Pakkun. 

“That’s good.” Pakkun nods sagely. “Because we’re hungry.”

From the couch, Urushi’s ears perk up. He shuffles his head out enough to peer at Kakashi.

“Didn’t I feed you before I leave?” Kakashi asks, heading to the food bowls. Although the food bowls had been licked clean, the smell of food was recent.

“Nooo, you did not.” Pakkun sniffs unhappily at him. “Did you think I’d lie about that?”

_‘Yes.’_

Kakashi sighs. “ _Fine,_ just this once.” He reaches for the large bag of dog food and Urushi leaps off the dog pile.

“FOOD!”

The rest of the pack follow, swarming him, barely letting him enough room to pour the mix in. Kakashi waddles through the pack, shoving Bull aside so that he can reach the bowls.

“Sit.” 

The pack quickly sit, even though their butts are bouncing off the floor impatiently and tails are wagging so hard that he can hear them swishing. He pours the ninken mix into their bowls and pulls out the container of pre-prepared cubed beef, dropping a few in each of the bowls.

Sakura had liked to give them those yakitori beef chunks.

“Okay, go.”

The pack rushes past him, claiming and guarding their bowls. 

He should probably get the canned ninken mix from the Inuzukas again. Kakashi looks up, from the kitchen to the wall of weapons. 

Sakura’s katana is still there, but with a layer of dust across its sheath and handle. Sakura had taken great care of her katana. He should sharpen it and grease it to make sure it doesn’t rust. There are little things he can do for her now. 

Pakkun noses the back of his calf and he squats, petting Pakkun.

“Finished so fast?” Kakashi says. 

Urushi leaps onto his lap, bowling Kakashi to the crowd where the pack quickly settles onto him. 

The sun through the kitchen window is still high. Maybe later, when the pack gets off him, Kakashi thinks from the kitchen floor. Bull lays his head on Kakashi's chest, nudging his hand until Kakashi begins scratching his ears. 

No one’s looking for him right now, anyway.

✥.✥.✥

There’s a loud pounding on Kakashi’s door. He’s not too keen on getting up right now even if there’s a fire happening somewhere. He’s not an earth specialist or a water specialist. There are only very, _very_ limited reasons why anyone would pick to disturb him. 

“Boss, not going to answer the door?” Pakkun presses his wet nose on Kakashi’s bare neck.

“No,” he grunts unhappily at the cold wet nose. “If they need a tracker, they can find the Inuzukas. I’m off-duty for another two weeks.”

The pounding continues, louder and more incessant. Then it stops. The small metal ledge on his kitchen window creaks and the window slides open.

“Kakashi,” Aoba calls out, crouching on his kitchen window.

“Yo, Aoba-chan. Surely—”

“It’s them. Sakura, Genma. They’re back.”

Kakashi sits up, ignoring the ninken tumbling from him. “What?”

“Sakura and Genma came back. They— Genma’s still in surgery. Sakura woke up—” 

Sakura and Genma came back.

_They came back._

Kakashi draws a ragged breath, trying to focus on Aoba’s words even when the world seems to drown in a barrage of noises. 

“— There’s no saying what they did—”

“Where?”

Aoba stops at Kakashi’s curt word. “Where?” Aoba repeats. 

“Where are they?” Kakashi stands, pulling on his uniform and mask. “I need— I need to go—” He hooks on his weapon pouch.

“Didn’t you... hear what I said... earlier?” Aoba asks. “Based on the preliminary debriefing… It seems that their captives... did something to Sakura’s mind.”

Kakashi is unable to suppress the instinctive growl. “She needs me. I need to go.” He picks up his sandals and squeezes past Aoba. 

“Kakashi!”

“You _can’t_ tell me I can’t go.” Kakashi ties his hitai-ate across his head. “You can’t tell me they survived and then say I can’t _see_ them.”

Aoba holds his hands up helplessly, shifting on the tiny metal ledge. “I’m not. No one is saying you can’t.” Aoba clasps Kakashi’s arm. “You have to prepare yourself, Kakashi. Sakura is in T&I right now.”

“ _What.”_ There are only several reasons that Kakashi could think of that would require Sakura in T&I. He forces himself to go through the breathing exercises that his therapist had taught him, counts from one to one hundred then back. He’s as calm as he’s ever going to be.

Then he flickers away.

✥.✥.✥

Raidou has never seen the head of T&I this rattled when Inoichi re-entered the room, his face pale and stricken. 

“It’s going to be hard for me to assume anything but the worst news,” Raidou says. 

Inoichi sighs. “If you’re here for good news, I’m afraid I don’t have any.”

“What is your verdict?” Raidou asks, standing from the cold, metal bench in the surveillance room.

“Sakura… She, and probably Genma too, have been left too long with the enemies. We’re looking at a very high likelihood of them being a sleeper or a traitor. Especially since they seemed to have genjutsu-ed her to the point of being unable to differentiate reality.”

Raidou takes a slow breath. “Then, I guess.” The words in his throat seemed to sear. “I guess.” He stops again, unable to vocalise them.

“I guess it’s good you haven’t told Kakashi,” Inoichi says. 

“Yes.” Raidou turns to look through the one-sided mirror. Inoichi had transferred her chains to the cot instead. 

To gain her back, then to lose her would be incredibly cruel to Kakashi. Raidou has had a long history of mental stability, unlike Kakashi. He could take it. He could hold Sakura’s hand, watch over her until T&I passes their sentence. Raidou already knows what it would be.

“What does that even mean?” Shikamaru asks, pushing off the wall. “So they genjutsu tortured her, can we not rehabilitate her?” 

“It means that they’re very likely going to execute her,” Inoichi replies, stepping over to squeeze Shikamaru’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Shikamaru.”

“Why? _Why_ can’t we rehabilitate her?” Shikamaru glares at Inoichi.

“There are many types of sleepers. Some don’t even realise they’re transmitting information and there are even ones that are bombs. Some are designed for specific people. To provoke a reaction from their target. For example, if Sakura was designed to kill Kakashi.” 

Kakashi might let her do it. He might think he deserved it.

“Sage damn it,” Shikamaru mutters, and runs a weary hand through his hair then kicks the nearby trash can. It falls with a clatter. “ _Sage fucking damnit!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reasoning for why I used _Sayonara_ instead of good bye is because of the finality of it implied in Japanese language that isn’t quite the same in english. Sayonara is generally used for either long goodbyes (like you won’t see them for years) or never seeing them again.
> 
> P.S: We're 1 chp away from recovery portion.
> 
> Also I adjusted the tags recently (or maybe not. not sure, I've lost track of time), you'll see an additional character added. ☺ Yes, he'll have an actual presence in this fic, not too much though.
> 
> Beta-ed by: Mirmallia

**Author's Note:**

> Also relevant to ESR series, we have side stories that are actually part of the story instead of just AUs.  
> Sasuke's POV reaching from ESR to SFoA: [Bloody Springs of Uchiha](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26011522)  
> [Shikamaru's POV from SFoA c5 to c8: Deers of Spring](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26419855)
> 
> You can find me [on discord](https://discord.gg/Aeeremf) if you like.  
> 


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